(12) United States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 7,753,257 B2

USOO7753257B2

(12) United States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 7,753,257 B2 Silverbrook et al. (45) Date of Patent: *Jul. 13, 2010

(54) METHOD OF FACILITATING INTERACTION (58) Field of Classification Search ................. 235/381, BETWEENUSER AND PACKAGED PRODUCT

(75) Inventors: Kia Silverbrook, Balmain (AU); Paul Lapstun, Balmain (AU); Simon Robert Walmsley, Balmain (AU)

(73) Assignee: Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd, Balmain, New South Wales (AU)

Ot1Ce: ubject to any d1Sclaimer, the term of this *) Not Subj y disclai h f thi patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) by 9 days.

This patent is Subject to a terminal dis claimer.

(21) Appl. No.: 12/235,593

(22) Filed: Sep. 22, 2008

(65) Prior Publication Data

US 2009/OO14515 A1 Jan. 15, 2009

Related U.S. Application Data (63) Continuation of application No. 12/121,790, filed on

May 16, 2008, which is a continuation of application No. 1 1/712,434, filed on Mar. 1, 2007, now Pat. No. 7.380,712, which is a continuation of application No. 10/409,845, filed on Apr. 9, 2003, now Pat. No. 7,225, 979, which is a continuation-in-part of application No. 09/663,701, filed on Sep. 15, 2000, now Pat. No. 6,995,859.

(30) Foreign Application Priority Data

Sep. 17, 1999 (AU) ..................................... PQ2912 Oct. 25, 1999 (AU) ..................................... PQ3632

(51) Int. Cl. G06F 7700 (2006.01)

(52) U.S. Cl. ....................................... 235/375; 235/494

ReGUest FORM

NAME C ADDREss C

235/383,385,494; 705/10, 14, 23 See application file for complete search history.

(56) References Cited

U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS

4.418,278 A 11/1983 Mondshein

(Continued) FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS

EP O805410 A 11, 1997

(Continued) OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Dymetman, M., and Copperman, M., “Intelligent Paper in Electronic Publishing, Artist Imaging, and Digital Typography, Proceedings of EP '98, Mar/Apr. 1998, Springer Verlag LNCS 1375, pp. 392–406.

Primary Examiner Daniel St. Cyr

(57) ABSTRACT

A method of facilitating an interaction between a user and an item, said item comprising a product contained in a package, said package having an interface Surface containing informa tion relating to the item, the interface Surface having disposed thereon coded data indicative of an identity of the item and of coordinates of a plurality of locations of the interface surface, the method including the steps of receiving, in a computer system, indicating data from a sensing device regarding the identity of the item and at least one position of the sensing device relative to the interface Surface, the sensing device, when placed in an operative position relative to the interface Surface, sensing at least Some of the coded data in the vicinity of the sensing device and generating the indicating data using at least some of the sensed coded data; and facilitating, in the computer system and with reference to the indicating data, the interaction between the user and the item.

20 Claims, 47 Drawing Sheets

E.

ADR1 Text Field

US 7,753,257 B2

U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS 6,141,441. A 10/2000 Cass et al. 6,249,276 B1 6/2001 Ohno

4,864,618 A 9/1989 Wright et al. 6,330,976 B1 12/2001 Dymetman et al. 5,042,073 A 8, 1991 Collot et al. 6,386,453 B1 5/2002 Russell et al. 5,051,736 A 9, 1991 Bennett et al. 6.464,139 B1 10/2002 Wilz et al. 5.449,896 A 9/1995 Hecht et al. 6,674,427 B1 1/2004 Pettersson et al. 5.453,762 A 9/1995 Ito et al. 6,964.374 B1 1 1/2005 Duknic et al. 5,477,012 A 12, 1995 Sekendur 6,995,859 B1* 2/2006 Silverbrook et al. ....... 358,118 5,572,010 A 1 1/1996 Petrie 7.225,979 B2 * 6/2007 Silverbrook et al. ........ 235,383 5,579,481. A 1 1/1996 Drerup 7,380,712 B2 * 6/2008 Silverbrook et al. ........ 235,383 5,612,720 A 3/1997 Ito et al. 5,652,412 A 7, 1997 LaZZOuni et al. FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS 5,661.506 A 8, 1997 LaZZOuni et al. 5,692,073. A 1 1/1997 Cass EP 0887753. A 12/1998 5,781,914. A 7/1998 Stork et al. EP 0913989 5, 1999 5,852,434. A 12/1998 Sekendur GB 2306669. A 5, 1997 5,883,338 A 3/1999 Trunck et al. WO WO 97.22959 A 6/1997 5,896.403 A 4, 1999 Nagasaki et al. WO WO99, 18487 A2 4f1999 5,929,429 A 7/1999 Petrie WO WO 99,34277 7, 1999 5,978,773. A 1 1/1999 Hudetz et al. WO WO99,392.77 A 8, 1999 6,050,490 A 4/2000 Leichner et al. WO WO99,50787 A1 10, 1999 6,076.734 A 6/2000 Dougherty et al. 6,081,261 A 6, 2000 Wolff et al. * cited by examiner

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US 7,753,257 B2 1.

METHOD OF EACILITATING INTERACTION BETWEENUSER AND PACKAGED PRODUCT

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a Continuation of Ser. No. 12/121,790 filed on May 16, 2008, which is a Continuation of U.S. appli cation Ser. No. 1 1/712,434 filed on Mar. 1, 2007, now issued U.S. Pat. No. 7,380,712, which is a Continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/409,845 filed on Apr. 9, 2003, now issued U.S. Pat. No. 7.225,979, which is a Continuation-in Part of U.S. application Ser. No. 09/663,701, filed on 15 Sep. 2000, now issued U.S. Pat. No. 6,995,859 all of which are herein incorporated by reference.

FIELD OF INVENTION

This invention relates to unique object identification and, in particular, to methods and systems for identifying and inter acting with objects.

CO-PENDING APPLICATIONS

Various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the present invention are disclosed in the following U.S. applica tions co-filed by the applicant or assignee of the present invention:

U.S. Pat. No. Title

7,156.289 Methods and Systems for Object Identification and Interaction

7,178,718 Methods and systems for object identification and interaction

7,225,979 Methods and systems for object identification and interaction

10,409,864 Orientation Indicating Cyclic Position Codes 7,111,791 Symmetric Tags

The disclosures of these co-filed applications are incorpo rated herein by cross-reference.

Various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the present invention are disclosed in the following application filed by the applicant or assignee of the present invention on 7 Apr. 2003: Australian Provisional Application No 2003901617 entitled “Methods and Systems for Object Iden tification and Interaction'. The disclosures of this co-pending application are incorporated herein by cross-reference.

Various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the present invention are disclosed in the following co-pending PCT applications filed by the applicant or assignee of the present invention on 4 Dec. 2002: U.S. Ser. No. 10/309.358 entitled “Rotationally Symmetric Tags. The disclosures of these co-pending applications are incorporated herein by cross-reference.

Various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the present invention are disclosed in the following co-pending PCT applications filed by the applicant or assignee of the present invention on 22 Nov. 2002: PCTFAUO2/O1572 and PCTFAUFO2/O1573. The disclosures of these co-pending applications are incor

porated herein by cross-reference. Various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the

present invention are disclosed in the following co-pending PCT applications filed by the applicant or assignee of the present invention on 15 Oct. 2002:

10

15

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

65

2 PCT/AU02/01391, PCT/AU02/01392, PCT/AU02/01393,

PCTAAUO2/O1394 and PCTAAUO2/O1395. The disclosures of these co-pending applications are incor


present invention are disclosed in the following co-pending PCT applications filed by the applicant or assignee of the present invention on 26 Nov. 2001: PCT/AU01/01527, PCT/AU01/01528, PCT/AU01/01529,

PCTAAUO1/O1530 and PCTAAUO1/O1531. The disclosures of these co-pending applications are incor


present invention are disclosed in the following co-pending PCT applications filed by the applicant or assignee of the present invention on 11 Oct. 2001: PCT/AU01/01274. The disclosures of these co-pending applications are incorporated herein by cross-reference.

Various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the present invention are disclosed in the following co-pending PCT applications filed by the applicant or assignee of the present invention on 14 Aug. 2001: PCT/AU01/00996. The disclosures of these co-pending applications are incorporated herein by cross-reference.

Various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the present invention are disclosed in the following co-pending U.S. applications filed by the applicant or assignee of the present invention on 27 Nov. 2000:

6,530,339 6,631,897 7,295,839 09/722,174 7,175,079 7,064,851 6,826,547 6,741,871 6,927,871 6,980,306 6,965,439 6,788,982 7,263,270 6,788,293 6,946,672 7,091960 6,792,165 7,105,753 7,182,247

The disclosures of these co-pending applications are incor porated herein by cross-reference.

Various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the present invention are disclosed in the following co-pending U.S. applications filed by the applicant or assignee of the present invention on 20 Oct. 2000:

7,190.474 7,110,126 6,813,558 6,965.454 6,847,883 7,131,058 09/693,690 6,982,798 6.474,888 6,627,870 6,724,374 09/693,514 6,454,482 6,808,330 6,527,365 6.474,773 6,550,997

The disclosures of these co-pending U.S. applications are incorporated herein by cross-reference.

Various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the present invention are disclosed in the following co-pending U.S. applications filed by the applicant or assignee of the present invention on 15 Sep. 2000:

6,679.420 6,963,845 6,995,859 6,720,985


Various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the present invention are disclosed in the following co-pending U.S. applications filed by the applicant or assignee of the present invention on 30 Jun. 2000:

US 7,753,257 B2

6,824,044 6,678.499 6,976,220 6,976,035 6,766,942 7,286,113 6,922,779 6,978,019 09/607,843 6,959,298 6,973,450 7,150.404 6,965,882 7,233,924 7,007,851 6,957,921 6.457,883 6,831,682 5 6,977,751 6,398,332 6,394,573 6,622,923


Various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the present invention are disclosed in the following co-pending U.S. applications filed by the applicant or assignee of the present invention on 23 May 2000:

10

15

6.428,133 6,526,658 6,315,399 6,338,548 6,540,319 6,328,431 6,328,425 6,991,320 6,383,833 6.464,332 6,390,591 7,018,016 6,328,417 09/575,197 7,079,712 6,825,945 7,330,974 6,813,039 6,987,506 7,038,797 6,980,318 6,816,274 7,102,772 7,350,236 6,681,045 6,728,000 7,173,722 7,088,459 09/575,181 7,068,382 20 7,062,651 6,789,194 6,789,191 6,644,642 6,502,614 6,622,999 6,669,385 6,549,935 6,987,573 6,727,996 6,591,884 6,439,706 6,760,119 7,295,332 6,290,349 6,428,155 6,785,016 6,870,966 6,822,639 6,737,591 7,055,739 7,233,320 6,830,196 6,832,717 6,957,768 09/575,172 7,170,499 7,106,888 7,123,239 6,409,323 6,409,323 6,604,810 6,318,920 6,488.422 6,795,215 7,154,638 25 6,859,289


30

BACKGROUND

For the purposes of automatic identification, a product item is commonly identified by a 12-digit Universal Product Code (UPC), encoded machine-readably in the form of a printed 35 bar code.

Within Supply chain management, there is considerable interest in expanding or replacing the UPC Scheme to allow individual product items to be uniquely identified and thereby tracked. Individual item tagging can reduce 'shrinkage' due 40 to lost, stolen or spoiled goods, improve the efficiency of demand-driven manufacturing and Supply, facilitate the pro filing of product usage, and improve the customer experience.

There are two main contenders for individual item tagging: optical tags in the form of two-dimensional bar codes, and 45 radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. Optical tags have the advantage of being inexpensive, but require optical line of-sight for reading. RFID tags have the advantage of Sup porting omnidirectional reading, but are comparatively expensive. 50

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to a first aspect of the present invention there is disclosed a method of facilitating an interaction between a 55 user and a product item, the product item having an identity and the method including the steps of

providing the user with an interface Surface associated with the product item and containing information relating to the product item, the interface Surface having disposed thereon 60 coded data indicative of the identity of the product item and of a plurality of reference points of the interface surface;

receiving, in a computer system, indicating data from a sensing device regarding the identity of the product item and a position of the sensing device relative to the interface Sur- 65 face, the sensing device, when placed in an operative position relative to the interface Surface, sensing at least some of the

4 coded data in the vicinity of the sensing device and generating the indicating data using at least Some of the sensed coded data; and

facilitating, in the computer system and with reference to the indicating data, the interaction between the user and the product item.

Preferably, the interaction is associated with at least one Zone of the interface surface and in which the method includes identifying, in the computer system and from the Zone relative to which the sensing device is located, the inter action.

Preferably, the method includes: receiving, in the computer system, data regarding move

ment of the sensing device relative to the interface surface, the sensing device sensing its movement relative to the interface Surface using at least Some of the coded data; and

identifying, in the computer system and from the move ment being at least partially within the at least one Zone, the interaction.

According to a second aspect of the present invention there is disclosed a method of facilitating an interaction between a user and a product item, the product item having an identity and the method including the steps of

providing the user with an interface Surface associated with the product item, the interface Surface containing information relating to the product item and having disposed thereon coded data indicative of the identity of the product item and a parameter of the interaction;

receiving, in a computer system and from a sensing device, indicating data regarding the identity of both the product item and the parameter of the interaction, and movement data regarding movement of the sensing device relative to the interface Surface, the sensing device, when moved relative to the interface Surface, sensing at least Some of the coded data and generating the indicating data and the movement data using at least Some of the sensed coded data; and

interpreting, in the computer system, the indicating data and the movement data as it relates to the interaction.

According to a third aspect of the present invention there is disclosed a method of facilitating an interaction between a user and a product item, the product item having an identity and the method including the steps of

providing the user with an interface Surface associated with the product item, the interface Surface containing information relating to the product item and having disposed thereon coded data indicative of the identity of the product item;

receiving, in a computer system, user data from a sensing device regarding an identity of the user and indicating data regarding the identity of the product item, the sensing device containing the user data and, when placed in an operative position relative to the interface Surface, sensing at least some of the coded data in the vicinity of the sensing device and generating the indicating data using at least some of the sensed coded data; and

facilitating, in the computer system and with reference to the user data and the indicating data, the interaction between the user and the product item.

Preferably, the coded data is also indicative of a parameter of the interaction, and the method includes receiving, in the computer system, indicating data from the sensing device regarding the parameter of the interaction, the sensing device generating the indicating data using at least some of the sensed coded data.

Preferably, the method includes receiving, in the computer system, data from the sensing device regarding movement of

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the sensing device relative to the interface Surface, the sensing device generating data regarding its own movement relative to the interface surface.

Preferably, the interaction is selected from the group com prising:

(a) providing product information about the product item to the user;

(b) recording a purchase transaction relating to the product item;

(c) recording a potential purchase transaction relating to the product item;

(d) providing comparison information to the user, the com parison information comparing the product information about the product item with product information about another product item;

(e) playing a game associated with the product item; and (f) conducting a competition in relation to the product item. Preferably, the product information comprises information

relating to any one of the product items: (a) cost; (b) contents; (c) weight; (d) place of origin; (e) manufacturer; (f) date of manufacture; (g) date of packaging: (h) use-by date: (i) current owner, and () dimensions. Preferably, the interface surface is selected from the group

comprising: (a) a label; (b) a package; and (c) a surface of the product item itself. Preferably, the coded data is substantially invisible to the

average unaided human. Preferably, the coded data is disposed over a substantial

portion of the interface surface. More preferably, the coded data is disposed over more than 20% of the interface surface. Even more preferably, the coded data is disposed over more than 90% of the interface surface.

Preferably, the method further comprises identifying, in the computer system, that the user has entered handwritten text data by means of the sensing device and effecting, in the computer system, an operation associated with the handwrit ten text data.

Preferably, the method includes converting, in the com puter system, the handwritten text data to computer text.

Preferably, the method further comprises identifying, in the computer system, that the user has entered a handwritten signature by means of the sensing device and effecting, in the computer system, an operation associated with the handwrit ten signature.

Preferably, the method includes verifying, in the computer system, that the signature is that of the user.

Preferably, the operation associated with the handwritten signature is associated with payment authorization.

Preferably, the method further comprises identifying, in the computer system, that the user has entered a hand-drawn picture by means of the sensing device and effecting, in the computer system, an operation associated with the hand drawn picture.

Preferably, a portion of the coded data is superimposed with a visual graphic, the visual graphic being at least par tially indicative, to the user, of the interaction.

Preferably, the sensing device contains an identifier which imparts a unique identity to the sensing device and identifies

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6 it as belonging to the user and in which the method includes monitoring, in the computer system, the identifier.

Preferably, the method includes providing all required information relating to the interaction in the interface Surface to eliminate the need for a separate display device.

In one form, the coded data is disposed on the interface Surface in accordance with a layout, the layout having at least order n rotational symmetry, where n is at least two, the layout encoding an orientation codeword comprising a sequence of an integer multiple m of n symbols, where m is one or more, each encoded symbol being distributed at n locations about a center of rotational symmetry of the layout such that decod ing the symbols at each of the n orientations of the layout produces in representations of the orientation codeword, each representation comprising a different cyclic shift of the ori entation codeword and being indicative of the degree of rota tion of the layout, and wherein the orientation codeword is fault tolerant.

In another form, the coded data is disposed on the interface Surface in accordance with a layout, the layout having at least order n rotational symmetry, where n is at least two, the layout including nidentical Sub-layouts rotated 1/n revolutions apart about a center of rotational symmetry of the layout, the coded data disposed in accordance with each Sub-layout including rotation-indicating data that distinguishes the rotation of that sub-layout from the rotation of at least one other sub-layout within the layout.

Inafurtherform, the coded data is disposed on the interface Surface in accordance with a layout having n-fold rotational symmetry, where n is at least two, the layout including in identical first sub-layouts rotated 1/n revolutions apart about a center of rotational symmetry of the layout, the coded data disposed in accordance with each first Sub-layout including rotation-indicating data that distinguishes the rotation of that first sub-layout from the rotation of at least one other first sub-layout within the layout.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention there is disclosed a system for facilitating an interaction between a user and a product item, the product item having an identity and the system including:

a interface Surface associated with the product item and containing information relating to the product item, the inter face Surface having disposed thereon coded data indicative of the identity of the product item and of a plurality of reference points of the interface Surface; and

a computer system adapted to facilitate the interaction in response to receiving indicating data from a sensing device, the indicating data being indicative of the identity of the product item and of a position of the sensing device relative to the interface Surface, the sensing device, when placed in an operative position relative to the interface Surface, sensing at least Some of the coded data in the vicinity of the sensing device and generating the indicating data using at least some of the sensed coded data.

Preferably, the interaction is associated with at least one Zone of the interface surface.

Preferably, the system includes the sensing device, the sensing device sensing its movement relative to the interface Surface using at least Some of the coded data.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention there is disclosed a system for facilitating an interaction between a user and a product item, the product item having an identity and the system including

an interface Surface associated with the product item, the interface Surface containing information relating to the prod

US 7,753,257 B2 7

uct item and having disposed thereon coded data indicative of the identity of the product item and of a parameter of the interaction; and

a computer system for receiving, from a sensing device, indicating data regarding the identity of both the product item and the parameter of the interaction, and movement data regarding movement of the sensing device relative to the interface Surface, and for interpreting the movement of the sensing device as it relates to the interaction, the sensing device, when moved relative to the interface Surface, sensing at least some of the coded data and generating the indicating data and the movement data using at least Some of the sensed coded data.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention there is disclosed a system for facilitating an interaction between a user and a product item, the product item having an identity and the system including:

a interface Surface associated with the product item, the interface Surface containing information relating to the prod uct item and having disposed thereon coded data indicative of the identity of the product item; and

a computer system adapted to receive from a sensing device user data regarding an identity of the user and indicat ing data regarding the identity of the product item, and for facilitating, with reference to the user data and the indicating data, the interaction between the user and the product item, the sensing device containing the user data and, when placed in an operative position relative to the interface Surface, sens ing at least some of the coded data in the vicinity of the sensing device and generating the indicating data using at least some of the sensed coded data.

Preferably, the coded data is also indicative of a parameter of the interaction, the computer system receiving indicating data from the sensing device regarding the parameter of the interaction, and the sensing device generating the indicating data using at least Some of the coded data.

Preferably, the system includes the sensing device, the sensing device sensing its movement relative to the interface Surface.

Preferably, the interaction is selected from the group com prising:

(a) providing product information about the product item to the user;

(b) recording a purchase transaction relating to the product item;

(c) recording a potential purchase transaction relating to the product item;

(d) providing comparison information to the user, the com parison information comparing the product information about the product item with product information about another product item;

(e) playing a game associated with the product item; and (f) conducting a competition in relation to the product item. Preferably, the product information comprises information

relating to any one of the product items: (a) cost; (b) contents; (c) weight; (d) place of origin; (e) manufacturer; (f) date of manufacture; (g) date of packaging: (h) use-by date: (i) current owner, and () dimensions. Preferably, the interface surface is selected from the group

comprising:

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(a) a label; (b) a package; and (c) a surface of the product item itself. Preferably, the coded data is substantially invisible to the

average unaided human. Preferably, the coded data is disposed over a substantial

portion of the interface surface. More preferably, the coded data is disposed over more than 20% of the interface surface. Even more preferably, the coded data is disposed over more than 90% of the interface surface.

Preferably, the sensing device includes a marking nib. Preferably, the sensing device contains an identifier which

imparts a unique identity to the sensing device and identifies it as belonging to the user.

In one form, the coded data is disposed on the interface Surface in accordance with a layout, the layout having at least order n rotational symmetry, where n is at least two, the layout encoding an orientation codeword comprising a sequence of an integer multiple m of n symbols, where m is one or more, each encoded symbol being distributed at n locations about a center of rotational symmetry of the layout such that decod ing the symbols at each of the n orientations of the layout produces in representations of the orientation codeword, each representation comprising a different cyclic shift of the ori entation codeword and being indicative of the degree of rota tion of the layout, and wherein the orientation codeword is fault tolerant.

In another form, the coded data is disposed on the interface Surface in accordance with a layout, the layout having at least order n rotational symmetry, where n is at least two, the layout including nidentical Sub-layouts rotated 1/n revolutions apart about a center of rotational symmetry of the layout, the coded data disposed in accordance with each Sub-layout including rotation-indicating data that distinguishes the rotation of that sub-layout from the rotation of at least one other sub-layout within the layout.

Inafurtherform, the coded data is disposed on the interface Surface in accordance with a layout having n-fold rotational symmetry, where n is at least two, the layout including in identical first sub-layouts rotated 1/n revolutions apart about a center of rotational symmetry of the layout, the coded data disposed in accordance with each first Sub-layout including rotation-indicating data that distinguishes the rotation of that first sub-layout from the rotation of at least one other first sub-layout within the layout.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention there is disclosed an interactive product item adapted for interac tion with a user via a sensing device and a computer system, and comprising:

a product item having an identity; an interface Surface associated with the product item and

having disposed thereon information relating to the product item and coded data indicative of the identity of the product item.

Preferably, the coded data is further indicative of a plurality of reference points of the interface surface.

Preferably, the coded data is further indicative of a param eter of an interaction.

Preferably, the interface surface is selected from the group comprising:

(a) a label; (b) a package; and (c) a surface of the product item itself. Preferably, the coded data is disposed on the interface

Surface in accordance with a layout, the layout having at least order n rotational symmetry, where n is at least two, the layout encoding an orientation codeword comprising a sequence of

US 7,753,257 B2 9

an integer multiple m of n symbols, where m is one or more, each encoded symbol being distributed at n locations about a center of rotational symmetry of the layout such that decod ing the symbols at each of the n orientations of the layout produces in representations of the orientation codeword, each representation comprising a different cyclic shift of the ori entation codeword and being indicative of the degree of rota tion of the layout, and wherein the orientation codeword is fault tolerant.

Alternatively, the coded data is disposed on the interface Surface in accordance with a layout, the layout having at least ordern rotational symmetry, where n is at least two, the layout including n identical Sub-layouts rotated 1/n revolutions apart about a center of rotational symmetry of the layout, the coded data disposed in accordance with each Sub-layout including rotation-indicating data that distinguishes the rotation of that sub-layout from the rotation of at least one other sub-layout within the layout.

In another form, the coded data is disposed on the interface Surface in accordance with a layout having n-fold rotational symmetry, where n is at least two, the layout including in identical first sub-layouts rotated 1/n revolutions apart about a center of rotational symmetry of the layout, the coded data disposed in accordance with each first Sub-layout including rotation-indicating data that distinguishes the rotation of that first sub-layout from the rotation of at least one other first sub-layout within the layout.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Preferred and other embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of non-limiting example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic of a the relationship between a sample printed netpage and its online page description;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a interaction between a netpage pen, a Web terminal, a netpage printer, a netpage relay, a netpage page server, and a netpage application server, and a Web server;

FIG. 3 illustrates a collection of netpage servers, Web terminals, printers and relays interconnected via a network;

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of a high-level structure of a printed netpage and its online page description;

FIG. 5a is a plan view showing the interleaving and rota tion of the symbols of four codewords of the tag:

FIG. 5b is a plan view showing a macrodot layout for the tag shown in FIG. 5a,

FIG. 5c is a plan view showing an arrangement of nine of the tags shown in FIGS. 5a and 5b, in which targets are shared between adjacent tags;

FIG. 6 is a plan view showing a relationship between a set of the tags shown in FIG. 6a and a field of view of a netpage sensing device in the form of a netpage pen;

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a tag image processing and decod ing algorithm;

FIG. 8 is a perspective view of a netpage pen and its associated tag-sensing field-of-view cone;

FIG. 9 is a perspective exploded view of the netpage pen shown in FIG. 8:

FIG.10 is a schematic block diagram of a pen controller for the netpage pen shown in FIGS. 8 and 9:

FIG. 11 is a perspective view of a wall-mounted netpage printer;

FIG. 12 is a section through the length of the netpage printer of FIG. 11;

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10 FIG. 12a is an enlarged portion of FIG. 12 showing a

section of the duplexed print engines and glue wheel assem bly:

FIG. 13 is a detailed view of the ink cartridge, ink, air and glue paths, and print engines of the netpage printer of FIGS. 11 and 12; FIG.14 is a schematic block diagram of a printer controller

for the netpage printer shown in FIGS. 11 and 12; FIG. 15 is a schematic block diagram of duplexed print

engine controllers and MemjetTM printheads associated with the printer controller shown in FIG. 14;

FIG. 16 is a schematic block diagram of the print engine controller shown in FIGS. 14 and 15;

FIG.17 is a perspective view of a single MemjetTM printing element, as used in, for example, the netpage printer of FIGS. 10 to 12:

FIG. 18 is a schematic view of the structure of an itemID; FIG. 19 is a schematic view of the structure of an omnitag: FIG. 20 is a schematic view of a product item and object

ownership and packaging hierarchy class diagram; FIG. 21 is a schematic view of a user class diagram; FIG. 22 is a schematic view of a printer class diagram; FIG. 23 is a schematic view of a pen class diagram; FIG. 24 is a schematic view of an application class dia

gram, FIG. 25 is a schematic view of a document and page

description class diagram; FIG. 26 is a schematic view of a document and page own

ership class diagram; FIG. 27 is a schematic view of a terminal element special

ization class diagram; FIG. 28 is a schematic view of a static element specializa

tion class diagram; FIG. 29 is a schematic view of a hyperlink element class

diagram; FIG. 30 is a schematic view of a hyperlink element spe

cialization class diagram; FIG. 31 is a schematic view of a hyperlinked group class

diagram; FIG. 32 is a schematic view of a form class diagram; FIG.33 is a schematic view of a digital ink class diagram; FIG. 34 is a schematic view of a field element specializa

tion class diagram; FIG. 35 is a schematic view of a checkbox field class

diagram; FIG. 36 is a schematic view of a text field class diagram; FIG. 37 is a schematic view of a signature field class

diagram; FIG.38 is a flowchart of an input processing algorithm; FIG.38a is a detailed flowchart of one step of the flowchart

of FIG.38: FIG. 39 is a schematic view of a page server command

element class diagram; FIG. 40 is a schematic view of a subscription delivery

protocol; FIG. 41 is a schematic view of a hyperlink request class

diagram; FIG. 42 is a schematic view of a hyperlink activation pro

tocol; FIG. 43 is a schematic view of a form submission protocol; FIG. 44 shows a triangular macrodot packing with a four

bit symbol unit outlined, for use with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 45 shows a square macrodot packing with a four-bit symbol unit outlined, for use with an embodiment of the invention such as that described in relation to FIGS. 5a to 5c,

US 7,753,257 B2 11

FIG. 46 shows a one-sixth segment of an hexagonal tag, with the segment containing a maximum of 11 four-bit sym bols with the triangular macrodot packing shown in FIG. 44;

FIG. 47 shows a one-quarter segment of a square tag, with the segment containing a maximum of 15 four-bit symbols with the square macrodot packing shown in FIG. 45:

FIG. 48 shows a logical layout of a hexagonal tag using the tag segment of FIG. 47, with six interleaved -2 ary (11, k) codewords;

FIG. 49 shows the macrodot layout of the hexagonal tag of FIG. 48:

FIG.50 shows an arrangement of seven abutting tags of the design of FIGS. 48 and 49, with shared targets;

FIG. 51 shows a logical layout of an alternative hexagonal tag using the tag segment of FIG. 47, with three interleaved 2-ary (9, k) codewords and three interleaved three-symbol fragments of three distributed 2-ary (9, k) codewords;

FIG. 52 shows the logical layout of an orientation-indicat ing cyclic position codeword of the hexagonal tag of FIG. 51:

FIG. 53 shows three adjacent tags of type P, Q and R, each with the layout of the tag of FIG.51, containing a complete set of distributed codewords:

FIG. 54 shows the logical layout of yet another alternative hexagonal tag using the tag segment of FIG. 47, with one local 2-ary (12, k) codeword, interleaved with eighteen 3-symbol fragments of eighteen distributed 2-ary (9, k) codewords;

FIG.55 shows the logical layout of the hexagonal tag of FIG. 54, re-arranged to show the distributed 3-symbol frag ments which contribute to the same codewords;

FIG. 56 is a schematic view of a physical product item and its online description; and

FIG. 57 is a schematic view of the interaction between a product item, a fixed product scanner, a hand-held product scanner, a scanner relay, a product server, and a product application server.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED AND OTHER EMBODIMENTS

Note: MemjetTM is a trade mark of Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd, Australia.

In the preferred embodiment, the invention is configured to work with the netpage networked computer system, a detailed overview of which follows. It will be appreciated that not every implementation will necessarily embody all or even most of the specific details and extensions discussed below in relation to the basic system. However, the system is described in its most complete form to reduce the need for external reference when attempting to understand the context in which the preferred embodiments and aspects of the present inven tion operate.

Inbrief summary, the preferred form of the netpage system employs a computer interface in the form of a mapped Sur face, that is, a physical Surface which contains references to a map of the Surface maintained in a computer system. The map references can be queried by an appropriate sensing device. Depending upon the specific implementation, the map refer ences may be encoded visibly or invisibly, and defined in such a way that a local query on the mapped Surface yields an unambiguous map reference both within the map and among different maps. The computer system can contain information about features on the mapped surface, and Such information can be retrieved based on map references Supplied by a sens ing device used with the mapped surface. The information thus retrieved can take the form of actions which are initiated by the computer system on behalf of the operator in response to the operators interaction with the surface features.

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12 In its preferred form, the netpage system relies on the

production of, and human interaction with, netpages. These are pages of text, graphics and images printed on ordinary paper, but which work like interactive web pages. Informa tion is encoded on each page using ink which is substantially invisible to the unaided human eye. The ink, however, and thereby the coded data, can be sensed by an optically imaging pen and transmitted to the netpage system.

In the preferred form, active buttons and hyperlinks on each page can be clicked with the pen to request information from the network or to signal preferences to a network server. In one embodiment, text written by hand on a netpage is automatically recognized and converted to computer text in the netpage system, allowing forms to be filled in. In other embodiments, signatures recorded on a netpage are automati cally verified, allowing e-commerce transactions to be securely authorized. As illustrated in FIG. 1, a printed netpage 1 can representa

interactive form which can be filled in by the user both physi cally, on the printed page, and "electronically, via commu nication between the pen and the netpage system. The example shows a “Request' form containing name and address fields and a Submit button. The netpage consists of graphic data 2 printed using visible ink, and coded data 3 printed as a collection of tags 4 using invisible ink. The corresponding page description 5, stored on the netpage net work, describes the individual elements of the netpage. In particular it describes the type and spatial extent (Zone) of each interactive element (i.e. text field or button in the example), to allow the netpage system to correctly interpret input via the netpage. The Submit button 6, for example, has a Zone 7 which corresponds to the spatial extent of the corre sponding graphic 8. As illustrated in FIG. 2, the netpage pen 101, a preferred

form of which is shown in FIGS. 8 and 9 and described in more detail below, works in conjunction with a personal computer (PC), Web terminal 75, or a netpage printer 601. The netpage printer is an Internet-connected printing appli ance for home, office or mobile use. The pen is wireless and communicates securely with the netpage network via a short range radio link 9. Short-range communication is relayed to the netpage network by a local relay function which is either embedded in the PC, Web terminal or netpage printer, or is provided by a separate relay device 44. The relay function can also be provided by a mobile phone or other device which incorporates both short-range and longer-range communica tions functions.

In an alternative embodiment, the netpage pen utilises a wired connection, such as a USB or other serial connection, to the PC, Web terminal, netpage printer or relay device. The netpage printer 601, a preferred form of which is

shown in FIGS. 11 to 13 and described in more detail below, is able to deliver, periodically or on demand, personalized newspapers, magazines, catalogs, brochures and other publi cations, all printed at high quality as interactive netpages. Unlike a personal computer, the netpage printer is an appli ance which can be, for example, wall-mounted adjacent to an area where the morning news is first consumed. Such as in a user's kitchen, near a breakfast table, or near the households point of departure for the day. It also comes in tabletop, desktop, portable and miniature versions.

Netpages printed at their point of consumption combine the ease-of-use of paper with the timeliness and interactivity of an interactive medium. As shown in FIG. 2, the netpage pen 101 interacts with the

coded data on a printed netpage 1 (or product item 201) and communicates the interaction via a short-range radio link9 to

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a relay. The relay sends the interaction to the relevant netpage page server 10 for interpretation. In appropriate circum stances, the page server sends a corresponding message to application computer software running on a netpage applica tion server 13. The application server may in turn send a response which is printed on the originating printer.

In an alternative embodiment, the PC, Web terminal, netpage printer or relay device may communicate directly with local or remote application Software, including a local or remote Web server. Relatedly, output is not limited to being printed by the netpage printer. It can also be displayed on the PC or Web terminal, and further interaction can be screen based rather than paper-based, or a mixture of the two.

The netpage system is made considerably more convenient in the preferred embodiment by being used in conjunction with high-speed microelectromechanical system (MEMS) based inkjet (MemjetTM) printers. In the preferred form of this technology, relatively high-speed and high-quality printing is made more affordable to consumers. In its preferred form, a netpage publication has the physical characteristics of a tra ditional newsmagazine, Such as a set of letter-size glossy pages printed in full color on both sides, bound together for easy navigation and comfortable handling. The netpage printer exploits the growing availability of

broadband Internet access. Cable service is available to 95% of households in the United States, and cable modem service offering broadband Internet access is already available to 20% of these. The netpage printer can also operate with slower connections, but with longer delivery times and lower image quality. Indeed, the netpage system can be enabled using existing consumer inkjet and laser printers, although the system will operate more slowly and will therefore be less acceptable from a consumer's point of view. In other embodi ments, the netpage system is hosted on a private intranet. In still other embodiments, the netpage system is hosted on a single computer or computer-enabled device. Such as a printer.

Netpage publication servers 14 on the netpage network are configured to deliver print-quality publications to netpage printers. Periodical publications are delivered automatically to Subscribing netpage printers via pointcasting and multi casting Internet protocols. Personalized publications are fil tered and formatted according to individual user profiles. A netpage printer can be configured to Support any number

of pens, and a pen can work with any number of netpage printers. In the preferred implementation, each netpage pen has a unique identifier. A household may have a collection of colored netpage pens, one assigned to each member of the family. This allows each user to maintain a distinct profile with respect to a netpage publication server or application SeVe.

A netpage pen can also be registered with a netpage regis tration server 11 and linked to one or more payment card accounts. This allows e-commerce payments to be securely authorized using the netpage pen. The netpage registration server compares the signature captured by the netpage pen with a previously registered signature, allowing it to authen ticate the user's identity to an e-commerce server. Other bio metrics can also be used to verify identity. A version of the netpage pen includes fingerprint scanning, verified in a simi lar way by the netpage registration server.

Although a netpage printer may deliver periodicals such as the morning newspaper without user intervention, it can be configured never to deliver unsolicited junk mail. In its pre ferred form, it only delivers periodicals from subscribed or otherwise authorized sources. In this respect, the netpage

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14 printer is unlike a fax machine or e-mail account which is visible to any junk mailer who knows the telephone number or email address.

1 Netpage System Architecture Each object model in the system is described using a Uni

fied Modeling Language (UML) class diagram. A class dia gram consists of a set of object classes connected by relation ships, and two kinds of relationships are of interest here: associations and generalizations. An association represents some kind of relationship between objects, i.e. between instances of classes. A generalization relates actual classes, and can be understood in the following way: if a class is thought of as the set of all objects of that class, and class A is a generalization of class B, then B is simply a subset of A. The UML does not directly Support second-order modelling i.e. classes of classes.

Each class is drawn as a rectangle labelled with the name of the class. It contains a list of the attributes of the class, sepa rated from the name by a horizontal line, and a list of the operations of the class, separated from the attribute list by a horizontal line. In the class diagrams which follow, however, operations are never modelled. An association is drawn as a line joining two classes,

optionally labelled at either end with the multiplicity of the association. The default multiplicity is one. An asterisk (*) indicates a multiplicity of “many’, i.e. zero or more. Each association is optionally labelled with its name, and is also optionally labelled at either end with the role of the corre sponding class. An open diamond indicates an aggregation association (is-part-of), and is drawn at the aggregator end of the association line. A generalization relationship (“is-a') is drawn as a solid

line joining two classes, with an arrow (in the form of an open triangle) at the generalization end. When a class diagram is broken up into multiple diagrams,

any class which is duplicated is shown with a dashed outline in all but the main diagram which defines it. It is shown with attributes only where it is defined. 1.1 Netpages Netpages are the foundation on which a netpage network is

built. They provide a paper-based user interface to published information and interactive services.

A netpage consists of a printed page (or other Surface region) invisibly tagged with references to an online descrip tion of the page. The online page description is maintained persistently by a netpage page server. The page description describes the visible layout and content of the page, including text, graphics and images. It also describes the input elements on the page, including buttons, hyperlinks, and input fields. A netpage allows markings made with a netpage pen on its Surface to be simultaneously captured and processed by the netpage System.

Multiple netpages can share the same page description. However, to allow input through otherwise identical pages to be distinguished, each netpage is assigned a unique page identifier. This pageID has sufficient precision to distinguish between a very large number of netpages.

Each reference to the page description is encoded in a printed tag. The tag identifies the unique page on which it appears, and thereby indirectly identifies the page descrip tion. The tag also identifies its own position on the page. Characteristics of the tags are described in more detail below.

Tags are printed in infrared-absorptive ink on any substrate which is infrared-reflective, such as ordinary paper. Near

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infrared wavelengths are invisible to the human eye but are easily sensed by a Solid-state image sensor with an appropri ate filter. A tag is sensed by an area image sensor in the netpage pen,

and the tag data is transmitted to the netpage system via the nearest netpage printer. The pen is wireless and communi cates with the netpage printer via a short-range radio link. Tags are sufficiently small and densely arranged that the pen can reliably image at least one tag even on a single click on the page. It is important that the pen recognize the page ID and position on every interaction with the page, since the interac tion is stateless. Tags are error-correctably encoded to make them partially tolerant to Surface damage.

The netpage page server maintains a unique page instance for each printed netpage, allowing it to maintain a distinct set ofuser-supplied values for input fields in the page description for each printed netpage. The relationship between the page description, the page

instance, and the printed netpage is shown in FIG. 4. The printed netpage may be part of a printed netpage document 45. The page instance is associated with both the netpage printer which printed it and, if known, the netpage user who requested it. As shown in FIG. 4, one or more netpages may also be

associated with a physical object Such as a product item, for example when printed onto the product item's label, packag ing, or actual Surface. 1.2 Netpage Tags

1.2.1 Tag Data Content In a preferred form, each tag identifies the region in which

it appears, and the location of that tag within the region. A tag may also contain flags which relate to the region as a whole or to the tag. One or more flag bits may, for example, signal a tag sensing device to provide feedback indicative of a function associated with the immediate area of the tag, without the sensing device having to refer to a description of the region. A netpage pen may, for example, illuminate an “active area’ LED when in the Zone of a hyperlink. As will be more clearly explained below, in a preferred

embodiment, each tag contains an easily recognized invariant structure which aids initial detection, and which assists in minimizing the effect of any warp induced by the Surface or by the sensing process. The tags preferably tile the entire page, and are Sufficiently Small and densely arranged that the pen can reliably image at least one tag even on a single click on the page. It is important that the pen recognize the page ID and position on every interaction with the page, since the interaction is stateless.

In a preferred embodiment, the region to which a tag refers coincides with an entire page, and the region ID encoded in the tag is therefore synonymous with the page ID of the page on which the tag appears. In other embodiments, the region to which a tag refers can be an arbitrary Subregion of a page or other Surface. For example, it can coincide with the Zone of an interactive element, in which case the region ID can directly identify the interactive element.

In the preferred form, each tag contains 120 bits of infor mation. The region ID is typically allocated up to 100 bits, the tag ID at least 16 bits, and the remaining bits are allocated to flags etc. Assuming a tag density of 64 per square inch, a 16-bit tag ID Supports a region size of up to 1024 Square inches. Larger regions can be mapped continuously without increasing the tag ID precision simply by using abutting regions and maps. The 100-bit regionID allows2' (~10' or a million trillion trillion) different regions to be uniquely identified.

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16 1.2.2 Tag Data Encoding

In one embodiment, the 120 bits oftag data are redundantly encoded using a (15, 5) Reed-Solomon code. This yields 360 encoded bits consisting of 6 codewords of 154-bit symbols each. The (15, 5) code allows up to 5 symbol errors to be corrected per codeword, i.e. it is tolerantofa symbol error rate of up to 33% per codeword.

Each 4-bit symbol is represented in a spatially coherent way in the tag, and the symbols of the six codewords are interleaved spatially within the tag. This ensures that a burst error (an error affecting multiple spatially adjacent bits) dam ages a minimum number of symbols overall and a minimum number of symbols in any one codeword, thus maximising the likelihood that the burst error can be fully corrected. Any suitable error-correcting code code can be used in

place of a (15, 5) Reed-Solomon code, for example: a Reed Solomon code with more or less redundancy, with the same or different symbol and codeword sizes; another block code; or a different kind of code. Such as a convolutional code (see, for example, Stephen B. Wicker, Error Control Systems for Digi tal Communication and Storage, Prentice-Hall 1995, the con tents of which a herein incorporated by reference thereto).

In order to Support "single-click” interaction with a tagged region via a sensing device, the sensing device must be able to see at least one entire tag in its field of view no matter where in the region or at what orientation it is positioned. The required diameter of the field of view of the sensing device is therefore a function of the size and spacing of the tags. 1.2.3 Tag Structure

FIG. 5a shows a tag 4, in the form of tag 726 with four perspective targets 17. The tag 726 represents sixty 4-bit Reed-Solomon symbols 747 (see description of FIGS. 44 to 46 below for discussion of symbols), for a total of 240 bits. The tag represents each “one bit by the presence of a mark 748, referred to as a macrodot, and each “Zero” bit by the absence of the corresponding macrodot. FIG. 5c shows a square tiling 728 of nine tags, containing all “one' bits for illustrative purposes. It will be noted that the perspective targets are designed to be shared between adjacent tags. FIG. 6 shows a square tiling of 16 tags and a corresponding mini mum field of view 193, which spans the diagonals of two tags. Usinga (15, 7) Reed-Solomon code, 112 bits oftag data are

redundantly encoded to produce 240 encoded bits. The four codewords are interleaved spatially within the tag to maxi mize resilience to burst errors. Assuming a 16-bit tag ID as before, this allows a region ID of up to 92 bits. The data-bearing macrodots 748 of the tag are designed to

not overlap their neighbors, so that groups of tags cannot produce structures that resemble targets. This also saves ink. The perspective targets allow detection of the tag, so further targets are not required.

Although the tag may contain an orientation feature to allow disambiguation of the four possible orientations of the tag relative to the sensor, the present invention is concerned with embedding orientation data in the tag data. For example, the four codewords can be arranged so that each tag orienta tion (in a rotational sense) contains one codeword placed at that orientation, as shown in FIG. 5a, where each symbol is labelled with the number of its codeword (1-4) and the posi tion of the symbol within the codeword (A-O). Tag decoding then consists of decoding one codeword at each rotational orientation. Each codeword can either contain a single bit indicating whether it is the first codeword, or two bits indi cating which codeword it is. The latter approach has the advantage that if, say, the data content of only one codeword is required, then at most two codewords need to be decoded to

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obtain the desired data. This may be the case if the region ID is not expected to change within a stroke and is thus only decoded at the start of a stroke. Within a stroke only the codeword containing the tag ID is then desired. Furthermore, since the rotation of the sensing device changes slowly and predictably within a stroke, only one codeword typically needs to be decoded per frame.

It is possible to dispense with perspective targets altogether and instead rely on the data representation being self-regis tering. In this case each bit value (or multi-bit value) is typi cally represented by an explicit glyph, i.e. no bit value is represented by the absence of a glyph. This ensures that the data grid is well-populated, and thus allows the grid to be reliably identified and its perspective distortion detected and Subsequently corrected during data sampling. To allow tag boundaries to be detected, each tag data must contain a marker pattern, and these must be redundantly encoded to allow reliable detection. The overhead of such marker pat terns is similar to the overhead of explicit perspective targets. Various such schemes are described in the present applicants co-pending PCT application PCT/AU01/01274 filed 11 Oct. 2001.

The arrangement 728 of FIG. 5c shows that the square tag 726 can be used to fully tile or tessellate, i.e. without gaps or overlap, a plane of arbitrary size.

Although in preferred embodiments the tagging schemes described herein encode a single data bit using the presence or absence of a single undifferentiated macrodot, they can also use sets of differentiated glyphs to represent single-bit or multi-bit values, such as the sets of glyphs illustrated in the present applicants co-pending PCT application PCT/AU01/ O1274 filed 11 Oct. 2001.

1.2.4.1 Macrodot Packing Schemes FIG. 44 shows a triangular macrodot packing 700 with a

four-bit symbol unit 702 outlined. The area of the symbol unit is given by Air-2v3s’s3.5s, where s the spacing of adja cent macrodots. FIG. 45 shows a square macrodot packing 704 with a four-bit symbol unit 706 outlined. The area of the symbol unit is given by Aviv-4s. FIG. 46 shows a hexago nal macrodot packing 708 with a four-bit symbol unit 710 outlined. The area of the symbol unit is given by A-3 V3s’s5.2s. Of these packing schemes, the triangular packing scheme gives the greatest macrodot density for a particular macrodot spacing. S

In preferred embodiments, S has a value between 100 um and 200 um. 1.2.4.2 Tag Designs

FIG. 46 shows a one-sixth segment 712 of a hexagonal tag, with the segment containing a maximum of 11 four-bit sym bols with the triangular macrodot packing shown in FIG. 44. The target 17 is shared with adjacent segments. Each tag segment can, by way of example, Support a codeword of an (11, k) Reed-Solomon code, i.e. a punctured (15, k) code, with the ability to detect u=11-k symbol errors, or correct t=L(11-k)/2 symbol errors. For example, ifk=7 then u-4 and t=2.

FIG. 47 shows a one-quarter segment 718 of a square tag, with the segment containing a maximum of 15 four-bit sym bols with the square macrodot packing shown in FIG. 45. Each tag segment can, by way of example, Support a code word of a (15, k) Reed-Solomon code, with the ability to detectu-15-k symbol errors, or correct t=L(15-k)/2 symbol errors. For example, if k=7 then u=8 and t=4.

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18 1.2.4.3 Hexagonal Tag Design

FIG. 48 shows a logical layout of a hexagonal tag 722 using the tag segment 712 of FIG. 46, with six interleaved 2-ary (11, k) codewords. FIG. 49 shows the macrodot layout of the hexagonal tag 722 of FIG. 51. FIG. 53 shows an arrangement 724 of seven abutting tags 722 of the design of FIG. 48, with shared targets 17. The arrangement 724 shows that the hex agonal tag 722 can be used to tessellate a plane of arbitrary S17C.

1.2.4.4. Alternative Hexagonal Tag Design 1 FIG. 51 shows the logical layout of an alternative hexago

nal tag. This tag design is described in detail in the present applicants’ co-filed U.S. application U.S. Ser. No. 10/409, 864 entitled “Orientation-Indicating Cyclic Position Codes'. The tag contains a 2-ary (6, 1) cyclic position codeword

(0, 5, 6, 9, A. F.) which can be decoded at any of the six possible orientations of the tag to determine the actual orien tation of the tag. Symbols which are part of the cyclic position codeword have a prefix of “R” and are numbered 0 to 5 in order of increasing significance, and are shown shaded in FIG 52. The tag locally contains three complete codewords which

are used to encode information unique to the tag. Each code word is of a punctured 2-ary (9,5) Reed-Solomon code. The tag therefore encodes up to 60 bits of information unique to the tag. The tag also contains fragments of three codewords which are distributed across three adjacent tags and which are used to encode information common to a set of contiguous tags. Each codeword is of a punctured 2-ary (9, 5) Reed Solomon code. Any three adjacent tags therefore together encode up to 60 bits of information common to a set of contiguous tags. The layout of the three complete codewords, distributed

across three adjacent tags, is shown in FIG. 53. In relation to these distributed codewords there are three types of tag. These are referred to as P, Q and R in order of increasing signifi CaCC.

The P, Q and R tags are repeated in a continuous tiling of tags which guarantees the any set of three adjacent tags con tains one tag of each type, and therefore contains a complete set of distributed codewords. The tag type, used to determine the registration of the distributed codewords with respect to a particular set of adjacent tags, is encoded in one of the local codewords of each tag. 1.2.4.4. Alternative Hexagonal Tag Design 2

FIG. 54 shows the logical layout of another alternative hexagonal tag. This tag design is described in detail in the present applicants’ co-filed U.S. application Ser. No. 10/410, 484 entitled “Symmetric Tags” (docket number NPTO23US).

FIG. 54 shows a logical layout of a hexagonal tag 750 using the tag segment of FIG. 46, with one local 2-ary (12, k) codeword interleaved with eighteen 3-symbol fragments of eighteen distributed 2-ary (9, k) codewords.

In the layout of FIG. 54, the twelve 4-bit symbols of the local codeword are labelled G1 through G12, and are shown with a dashed outline. Each symbol of the eighteen fragments of the eighteen distributed codewords is labelled with an initial prefix of A through F. indicating which of six nominal codewords the symbol belongs to, a subsequent prefix of S through U, indicating which 3-symbol part of the codeword the symbol belongs to, and a Suffix of 1 through 3, indicating which of the three possible symbols the symbol is.

Tag 750 is structured so that the minimal field of view allows the recovery of the local codeword G of at least one tag, and the entire set of distributed codewords AP through FR via fragments of tags of type P, Q and R included in the field

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of view. Furthermore, the continuous tiling oftag 750 ensures that there is a codeword available with a known layout for each possible rotational and translational combination (of which there are eighteen). Each distributed codeword includes data which identifies the rotation of the codeword in relation to the tiling, thus allowing the rotation of the tiling with respect to the field of view to be determined from decoded data rather than from other structures, and the local codeword to be decoded at the correct orientation.

FIG.55 shows the logical layout of the hexagonal tag 750 of FIG. 54, re-arranged to show the distributed 3-symbol fragments which contribute to the same codewords. For example, if the central tag shown in FIG. 54 were a P-type tag, then the six distributed codewords shown in the figure would be the AP, BP, CP, DP, EP and FP codewords. FIG.55 also shows the local G codeword of the tag. Clearly, given the distributed and repeating nature of the distributed codewords, different fragments from the ones shown in the figure can be used to build the corresponding codewords. 1.2.4 Tag Image Processing and Decoding

FIG. 7 shows a tag image processing and decoding process flow. A raw image 202 of the tag pattern is acquired (at 200), for example via an image sensor Such as a CCD image sensor, CMOS image sensor, or a scanning laser and photodiode image sensor. The raw image is then typically enhanced (at 204) to produce an enhanced image 206 with improved con trast and more uniform pixel intensities. Image enhancement may include global or local range expansion, equalisation, and the like. The enhanced image 206 is then typically filtered (at 208) to produce a filtered image 210. Image filtering may consist of low-pass filtering, with the low-pass filter kernel size tuned to obscure macrodots but to preserve targets. The filtering step 208 may include additional filtering (such as edge detection) to enhance target features. The filtered image 210 is then processed to locate target features (at 212), yield ing a set of target points. This may consist of a search for target features whose spatial inter-relationship is consistent with the known geometry of a tag. Candidate targets may be identified directly from maxima in the filtered image 210, or may the Subject of further characterisation and matching, Such as via their (binary or grayscale) shape moments (typi cally computed from pixels in the enhanced image 206 based on local maxima in the filtered image 210), as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/575,154. The search typi cally starts from the center of the field of view. The target points 214 found by the search step 212 indirectly identify the location of the tag in the three-dimensional space occupied by the image sensor and its associated optics. Since the target points 214 are derived from the (binary or grayscale) cen troids of the targets, they are typically defined to sub-pixel precision.

It may be useful to determine the actual 3D transform of the tag (at 216), and, by extension, the 3D transform (orpose) 218 of the sensing device relative to the tag. This may be done analytically, as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/575,154, or using a maximum likelihood estimator (such as least Squares adjustment) to fit parameter values to the 3D transform given the observed perspective-distorted target points (as described in P. R. Wolf and B. A. Dewitt, Elements of Photogrammetry with Applications in GIS, 3rd Edition, McGraw Hill, February 2000, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference thereto). The 3D transform includes the 3D translation of the tag, the 3D orientation (rotation) of the tag, and the focallength and viewport scale of the sensing device, thus giving eight parameters to be fitted, or six parameters if the focal length and viewport Scale are

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20 known (e.g. by design or from a calibration step). Each target point yields a pair of observation equations, relating an observed coordinate to a known coordinate. If eight param eters are being fitted, then five or more target points are needed to provide Sufficient redundancy to allow maximum likelihood estimation. If six parameters are being fitted, then four or more target points are needed. If the tag design con tains more targets than are minimally required to allow maxi mum likelihood estimation, then the tag can be recognised and decoded even if up to that many of its targets are damaged beyond recognition. To allow macrodot values to be sampled accurately, the

perspective transform of the tag must be inferred. Four of the target points are taken to be the perspective-distorted corners of a rectangle of known size in tag space, and the eight degree-of-freedom perspective transform 222 is inferred (at 220), based on Solving the well-understood equations relating the four tag-space and image-space point pairs (see Heckbert, P. Fundamentals of Texture Mapping and Image Warping, Masters Thesis, Dept. of EECS, U. of California at Berkeley, Technical Report No. UCB/CSD 89/516, June 1989, the con tents of which are herein incorporated by reference thereto). The perspective transform may alternatively be derived from the 3D transform 218, if available. The inferred tag-space to image-space perspective trans

form 222 is used to project (at 224) each known data bit position in tag space into image space where the real-valued position is used to bi-linearly (or higher-order) interpolate (at 224) the four (or more) relevant adjacent pixels in the enhanced input image 206. The resultant macrodot value is compared with a suitable threshold to determine whether it represents a Zero bit or a one bit. One the bits of one or more complete codeword have been

sampled, the codewords are decoded (at 228) to obtain the desired data 230 encoded in the tag. Redundancy in the code word may be used to detect errors in the sampled data, or to correct errors in the sampled data. As discussed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/575,

154, the obtained tag data 230 may directly or indirectly identify the Surface region containing the tag and the position of the tag within the region. An accurate position of the sensing device relative to the Surface region can therefore be derived from the tag data 230 and the 3D transform 218 of the sensing device relative to the tag. 1.2.6 Tag Map Decoding a tag results in a region ID, a tag ID, and a

tag-relative pen transform. Before the tag ID and the tag relative pen location can be translated into an absolute loca tion within the tagged region, the location of the tag within the region must be known. This is given by a tag map, a function which maps each tag ID in a tagged region to a corresponding location. The tag map class diagram is shown in FIG. 22, as part of the netpage printer class diagram. A tag map reflects the scheme used to tile the Surface region

with tags, and this can vary according to Surface type. When multiple tagged regions share the same tiling scheme and the same tag numbering scheme, they can also share the same tag map. The tag map for a region must be retrievable via the region

ID. Thus, given a region ID, a tag ID and a pen transform, the tag map can be retrieved, the tag ID can be translated into an absolute tag location within the region, and the tag-relative pen location can be added to the tag location to yield an absolute pen location within the region. The tag ID may have a structure which assists translation

through the tag map. It may, for example, encode Cartesian

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coordinates or polar coordinates, depending on the Surface type on which it appears. The tag ID structure is dictated by and known to the tag map, and tag IDS associated with dif ferent tag maps may therefore have different structures. For example, the tag ID may simply encode a pair of X and y coordinates of the tag, in which case the tag map may simply consist of record of the coordinate precision. If the coordinate precision is fixed, then the tag map can be implicit. 1.2.7 Tagging Schemes Two distinct surface coding schemes are of interest, both of

which use the tag structure described earlier in this section. The preferred coding scheme uses “location-indicating tags as already discussed. An alternative coding scheme uses object-indicating tags. A location-indicating tag contains a tag ID which, when

translated through the tag map associated with the tagged region, yields a unique tag location within the region. The tag-relative location of the pen is added to this tag location to yield the location of the pen within the region. This in turn is used to determine the location of the pen relative to a user interface element in the page description associated with the region. Not only is the user interface element itself identified, but a location relative to the user interface element is identi fied. Location-indicating tags therefore trivially support the capture of an absolute pen path in the Zone of a particular user interface element. An object-indicating tag contains a tag ID which directly

identifies a user interface element in the page description associated with the region. All the tags in the Zone of the user interface element identify the user interface element, making them all identical and therefore indistinguishable. Object indicating tags do not, therefore, Support the capture of an absolute pen path. They do, however, Support the capture of a relative pen path. So long as the position sampling frequency exceeds twice the encountered tag frequency, the displace ment from one sampled pen position to the next within a stroke can be unambiguously determined.

With either tagging scheme, the tags function in coopera tion with associated visual elements on the netpage as user interactive elements in that a user can interact with the printed page using an appropriate sensing device in order for tag data to be read by the sensing device and for an appropriate response to be generated in the netpage system. 1.3 Document and Page Descriptions A preferred embodiment of a document and page descrip

tion class diagram is shown in FIGS. 25 and 26. In the netpage system a document is described at three

levels. At the most abstract level the document 836 has a hierarchical structure whose terminal elements 839 are asso ciated with content objects 840 such as text objects, text style objects, image objects, etc. Once the document is printed on a printer with a particular page size and according to a par ticular user's scale factor preference, the document is pagi nated and otherwise formatted. Formatted terminal elements 835 will in some cases be associated with content objects which are different from those associated with their corre sponding terminal elements, particularly where the content objects are style-related. Each printed instance of a document and page is also described separately, to allow input captured through a particular page instance 830 to be recorded sepa rately from input captured through other instances of the same page description. The presence of the most abstract document description on

the page server allows a user to request a copy of a document without being forced to accept the Source document's specific format. The user may be requesting a copy through a printer

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22 with a different page size, for example. Conversely, the pres ence of the formatted document description on the page server allows the page server to efficiently interpret user actions on a particular printed page. A formatted document 834 consists of a set of formatted

page descriptions 5, each of which consists of a set of format ted terminal elements 835. Each formatted element has a spatial extent or Zone 58 on the page. This defines the active area of input elements such as hyperlinks and input fields. A document instance 831 corresponds to a formatted docu

ment 834. It consists of a set of page instances 830, each of which corresponds to a page description 5 of the formatted document. Each page instance 830 describes a single unique printed netpage 1, and records the page ID50 of the netpage. A page instance is not part of a document instance if it rep resents a copy of a page requested in isolation. A page instance consists of a set of terminal element

instances 832. An element instance only exists if it records instance-specific information. Thus, a hyperlink instance exists for a hyperlink element because it records a transaction ID 55 which is specific to the page instance, and a field instance exists for a field element because it records input specific to the page instance. An element instance does not exist, however, for static elements such as textflows. A terminal element can be a static element 843, a hyperlink

element 844, a field element 845 or a page server command element 846, as shown in FIG. 27. A static element 843 can be a style element 847 with an associated style object 854, a textflow element 848 with an associated styled text object 855, an image element 849 with an associated image element 856, a graphic element 850 with an associated graphic object 857, a video clip element 851 with an associated video clip object 858, an audio clip element 852 with an associated audio clip object 859, or a script element 853 with an associ ated script object 860, as shown in FIG. 28. A page instance has a background field 833 which is used

to record any digital ink captured on the page which does not apply to a specific input element.

In the preferred form of the invention, a tag map 811 is associated with each page instance to allow tags on the page to be translated into locations on the page. 1.4 The Netpage Network

In a preferred embodiment, a netpage network consists of a distributed set of netpage page servers 10, netpage registra tion servers 11, netpage ID servers 12, netpage application servers 13, netpage publication servers 14, Web terminals 75, netpage printers 601, and relay devices 44 connected via a network 19 such as the Internet, as shown in FIG. 3. The netpage registration server 11 is a server which records

relationships between users, pens, printers, applications and publications, and thereby authorizes various network activi ties. It authenticates users and acts as a signing proxy on behalf of authenticated users in application transactions. It also provides handwriting recognition services. As described above, a netpage page server 10 maintains persistent infor mation about page descriptions and page instances. The netpage network includes any number of page servers, each handling a Subset of page instances. Since a page server also maintains user input values for each page instance, clients Such as netpage printers send netpage input directly to the appropriate page server. The page server interprets any Such input relative to the description of the corresponding page. A netpage ID server 12 allocates document IDs 51 on

demand, and provides load-balancing of page servers via its ID allocation scheme.

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A netpage printer uses the Internet Distributed Name Sys tem (DNS), or similar, to resolve a netpage pageID50 into the network address of the netpage page server handling the corresponding page instance. A netpage application server 13 is a server which hosts

interactive netpage applications. A netpage publication server 14 is an application server which publishes netpage docu ments to netpage printers. They are described in detail in Section 2.

Netpage servers can be hosted on a variety of network server platforms from manufacturers such as IBM, Hewlett Packard, and Sun. Multiple netpage servers can run concur rently on a single host, and a single server can be distributed over a number of hosts. Some or all of the functionality provided by netpage servers, and in particular the function ality provided by the ID server and the page server, can also be provided directly in a netpage appliance Such as a netpage printer, in a computer workstation, or on a local network. 1.5 The Netpage Printer The netpage printer 601 is an appliance which is registered

with the netpage system and prints netpage documents on demand and via Subscription. Each printer has a unique printer ID 62, and is connected to the netpage network via a network Such as the Internet, ideally via abroadband connec tion.

Apart from identity and security settings in non-volatile memory, the netpage printer contains no persistent storage. As far as a user is concerned, “the network is the computer. Netpages function interactively across space and time with the help of the distributed netpage page servers 10, indepen dently of particular netpage printers. The netpage printer receives Subscribed netpage docu

ments from netpage publication servers 14. Each document is distributed in two parts: the page layouts, and the actual text and image objects which populate the pages. Because of personalization, page layouts are typically specific to a par ticular subscriber and so are pointcast to the subscriber's printer via the appropriate page server. Text and image objects, on the other hand, are typically shared with other subscribers, and so are multicast to all subscribers printers and the appropriate page servers. The netpage publication server optimizes the segmentation

of document content into pointcasts and multicasts. After receiving the pointcast of a document’s page layouts, the printer knows which multicasts, if any, to listen to. Once the printer has received the complete page layouts

and objects that define the document to be printed, it can print the document.

The printerrasterizes and prints odd and even pages simul taneously on both sides of the sheet. It contains duplexed print engine controllers 760 and print engines utilizing MemjetTM printheads 350 for this purpose. The printing process consists of two decoupled stages:

rasterization of page descriptions, and expansion and printing of page images. The raster image processor (RIP) consists of one or more standard DSPs 757 running in parallel. The duplexed print engine controllers consist of custom proces sors which expand, dither and print page images in real time, synchronized with the operation of the printheads in the print engines.

Printers not enabled for IR printing have the option to print tags using IR-absorptive blackink, although this restricts tags to otherwise empty areas of the page. Although Such pages have more limited functionality than IR-printed pages, they are still classed as netpages.

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24 A normal netpage printer prints netpages on sheets of

paper. More specialised netpage printers may print onto more specialised Surfaces, such as globes. Each printer Supports at least one surface type, and Supports at least one tag tiling scheme, and hence tag map, for each Surface type. The tag map 811 which describes the tag tiling scheme actually used to print a document becomes associated with that document so that the document's tags can be correctly interpreted.

FIG. 2 shows the netpage printer class diagram, reflecting printer-related information maintained by a registration server 11 on the netpage network. A preferred embodiment of the netpage printer is described

in greater detail in Section 6 below, with reference to FIGS. 11 to 16.

1.5.1 MemjetTM Printheads The netpage system can operate using printers made with a

wide range of digital printing technologies, including thermal inkjet, piezoelectric inkjet, laser electrophotographic, and others. However, for wide consumer acceptance, it is desir able that a netpage printer have the following characteristics:

photographic quality color printing high quality text printing high reliability low printer cost low ink cost low paper cost simple operation nearly silent printing high printing speed simultaneous double sided printing compact form factor low power consumption No commercially available printing technology has all of

these characteristics. To enable to production of printers with these characteris

tics, the present applicant has invented a new print technol ogy, referred to as MemjetTM technology. MemjetTM is a drop on-demand inkjet technology that incorporates pagewidth printheads fabricated using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. FIG. 17 shows a single printing element 300 of a MemjetTM printhead. The netpage wallprinter incor porates 168960 printing elements 300 to form a 1600 dpi pagewidth duplex printer. This printer simultaneously prints cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and infrared inks as well as paper conditioner and ink fixative. The printing element 300 is approximately 110 microns

long by 32 microns wide. Arrays of these printing elements are formed on a silicon substrate 301 that incorporates CMOS logic, data transfer, timing, and drive circuits (not shown). Major elements of the printing element 300 are the nozzle

302, the nozzle rim 303, the nozzle chamber 304, the fluidic seal 305, the ink channel rim 306, the leverarm 307, the active actuator beam pair 308, the passive actuator beam pair 309. the active actuator anchor 310, the passive actuator anchor 311, and the ink inlet 312. The active actuator beam pair 308 is mechanically joined to

the passive actuator beam pair 309 at the join 319. Both beams pairs are anchored at their respective anchor points 310 and 311. The combination of elements 308, 309, 310, 311, and 319 form a cantilevered electrothermal bend actuator 320.

While printing, the printhead CMOS circuitry distributes data from the print engine controller to the correct printing element, latches the data, and buffers the data to drive the electrodes 318 of the active actuator beam pair 308. This causes an electrical current to pass through the beam pair 308 for about one microsecond, resulting in Joule heating. The

US 7,753,257 B2 25

temperature increase resulting from Joule heating causes the beam pair 308 to expand. As the passive actuator beam pair 309 is not heated, it does not expand, resulting in a stress difference between the two beam pairs. This stress difference is partially resolved by the cantilevered end of the electro thermal bend actuator 320 bending towards the substrate 301. The lever arm 307 transmits this movement to the nozzle chamber 304. The nozzle chamber 304 moves about two microns to the position shown in FIG. 19(b). This increases the ink pressure, forcing ink 321 out of the nozzle 302, and causing the ink meniscus 316 to bulge. The nozzle rim 303 prevents the ink meniscus 316 from spreading across the surface of the nozzle chamber 304. As the temperature of the beam pairs 308 and 309 equal

izes, the actuator 320 returns to its original position. This aids in the break-off of the ink droplet 317 from the ink321 in the nozzle chamber. The nozzle chamber is refilled by the action of the surface tension at the meniscus 316.

In a netpage printer, the length of the printhead is the full width of the paper (typically 210 mm). When printing, the paper is moved past the fixed printhead. The printhead has 6 rows of interdigitated printing elements 300, printing the six colors or types of ink supplied by the ink inlets.

To protect the fragile Surface of the printhead during opera tion, a nozzle guard wafer is attached to the printhead Sub strate. For each noZZle there is a corresponding nozzle guard hole through which the ink droplets are fired. To prevent the noZZle guard holes from becoming blocked by paper fibers or other debris, filtered air is pumped through the air inlets and out of the nozzle guard holes during printing. To prevent ink from drying, the nozzle guard is sealed while the printer is idle.

1.6 The Netpage Pen The active sensing device of the netpage system is typically

a pen 101, which, using its embedded controller 134, is able to capture and decode IR position tags from a page via an image sensor. The image sensor is a solid-state device pro vided with an appropriate filter to permit sensing at only near-infrared wavelengths. As described in more detail below, the system is able to sense when the nib is in contact with the Surface, and the pen is able to sense tags at a sufficient rate to capture human handwriting (i.e. at 200 dpi or greater and 100 HZ or faster). Information captured by the pen is encrypted and wirelessly transmitted to the printer (or base station), the printer or base station interpreting the data with respect to the (known) page structure. The preferred embodiment of the netpage pen operates

both as a normal marking ink pen and as a non-marking stylus. The marking aspect, however, is not necessary for using the netpage system as a browsing system, such as when it is used as an Internet interface. Each netpage pen is regis tered with the netpage system and has a unique pen ID 61. FIG. 23 shows the netpage pen class diagram, reflecting pen related information maintained by a registration server 11 on the netpage network. When either nib is in contact with a netpage, the pen

determines its position and orientation relative to the page. The nib is attached to a force sensor, and the force on the nib is interpreted relative to a threshold to indicate whether the pen is “up' or “down”. This allows a interactive element on the page to be clicked by pressing with the pen nib, in order to request, say, information from a network. Furthermore, the force is captured as a continuous value to allow, say, the full dynamics of a signature to be verified. The pen determines the position and orientation of its nib

on the netpage by imaging, in the infrared spectrum, an area

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26 193 of the page in the vicinity of the nib. It decodes the nearest tag and computes the position of the nib relative to the tag from the observed perspective distortion on the imaged tag and the known geometry of the pen optics. Although the position resolution of the tag may be low, because the tag density on the page is inversely proportional to the tag size, the adjusted position resolution is quite high, exceeding the minimum resolution required for accurate handwriting rec ognition.

Pen actions relative to a netpage are captured as a series of strokes. A stroke consists of a sequence of time-stamped pen positions on the page, initiated by a pen-down event and completed by the Subsequent pen-up event. A stroke is also tagged with the page ID50 of the netpage whenever the page ID changes, which, under normal circumstances, is at the commencement of the stroke.

Each netpage pen has a current selection 826 associated with it, allowing the user to perform copy and paste opera tions etc. The selection is timestamped to allow the system to discard it after a defined time period. The current selection describes a region of a page instance. It consists of the most recent digital ink stroke captured through the pen relative to the background area of the page. It is interpreted in an appli cation-specific manner once it is Submitted to an application via a selection hyperlink activation.

Each pen has a current nib 824. This is the nib last notified by the pen to the system. In the case of the default netpage pen described above, either the marking black ink nib or the non-marking stylus nib is current. Each pen also has a current nib style 825. This is the nib style last associated with the pen by an application, e.g. in response to the user selecting a color from a palette. The default nib style is the nib style associated with the current nib. Strokes captured through a pen are tagged with the current nib style. When the strokes are sub sequently reproduced, they are reproduced in the nib style with which they are tagged. Whenever the pen is within range of a printer with which it

can communicate, the pen slowly flashes its “online' LED. When the pen fails to decode a stroke relative to the page, it momentarily activates its "error LED. When the pen suc ceeds in decoding a stroke relative to the page, it momentarily activates its 'ok' LED. A sequence of captured strokes is referred to as digital ink.

Digital ink forms the basis for the digital exchange of draw ings and handwriting, for online recognition of handwriting, and for online verification of signatures. The pen is wireless and transmits digital ink to the netpage

printer via a short-range radio link. The transmitted digitalink is encrypted for privacy and security and packetized for effi cient transmission, but is always flushed on a pen-up event to ensure timely handling in the printer. When the pen is out-of-range of a printer it buffers digital

ink in internal memory, which has a capacity of over ten minutes of continuous handwriting. When the pen is once again within range of a printer, it transfers any buffered digital ink. A pen can be registered with any number of printers, but

because all State data resides in netpages both on paper and on the network, it is largely immaterial which printer a pen is communicating with at any particular time. A preferred embodiment of the pen is described in greater

detail in Section 6 below, with reference to FIGS. 8 to 10. 1.7 Netpage Interaction The netpage printer 601 receives data relating to a stroke

from the pen 101 when the pen is used to interact with a netpage 1. The coded data 3 of the tags 4 is read by the pen

US 7,753,257 B2 27

when it is used to execute a movement, such as a stroke. The data allows the identity of the particular page and associated interactive element to be determined and an indication of the relative positioning of the pen relative to the page to be obtained. The indicating data is transmitted to the printer, where it resolves, via the DNS, the page ID 50 of the stroke into the network address of the netpage page server 10 which maintains the corresponding page instance 830. It then trans mits the stroke to the page server. If the page was recently identified in an earlier stroke, then the printer may already have the address of the relevant page server in its cache. Each netpage consists of a compact page layout maintained persis tently by a netpage page server (see below). The page layout refers to objects such as images, fonts and pieces of text, typically stored elsewhere on the netpage network. When the page server receives the stroke from the pen, it

retrieves the page description to which the stroke applies, and determines which element of the page description the stroke intersects. It is then able to interpret the stroke in the context of the type of the relevant element. A “click” is a stroke where the distance and time between

the pen down position and the Subsequent pen up position are both less than some Small maximum. An object which is activated by a click typically requires a click to be activated, and accordingly, a longer stroke is ignored. The failure of a penaction, such as a 'sloppy' click, to register is indicated by the lack of response from the pens “ok” LED.

There are two kinds of input elements in a netpage page description: hyperlinks and form fields. Input through a form field can also trigger the activation of an associated hyperlink. 1.7.1 Hyperlinks A hyperlink is a means of sending a message to a remote

application, and typically elicits a printed response in the netpage System. A hyperlink element 844 identifies the application 71

which handles activation of the hyperlink, a link ID 54 which identifies the hyperlink to the application, an “alias required flag which asks the system to include the user's application alias ID 65 in the hyperlink activation, and a description which is used when the hyperlink is recorded as a favorite or appears in the user's history. The hyperlink element class diagram is shown in FIG. 29. When a hyperlink is activated, the page server sends a

request to an application somewhere on the network. The application is identified by an application ID 64, and the application ID is resolved in the normal way via the DNS. There are three types of hyperlinks: general hyperlinks 863, form hyperlinks 865, and selection hyperlinks 864, as shown in FIG. 30. A general hyperlink can implement a request for a linked document, or may simply signal a preference to a server. A form hyperlink Submits the corresponding form to the application. A selection hyperlink Submits the current selection to the application. If the current selection contains a single-word piece of text, for example, the application may return a single-page document giving the words meaning within the context in which it appears, or a translation into a different language. Each hyperlink type is characterized by what information is Submitted to the application.

The corresponding hyperlink instance 862 records a trans action ID 55 which can be specific to the page instance on which the hyperlink instance appears. The transaction ID can identify user-specific data to the application, for example a “shopping cart of pending purchases maintained by a pur chasing application on behalf of the user. The system includes the pens current selection 826 in a

selection hyperlink activation. The system includes the con

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28 tent of the associated form instance 868 in a form hyperlink activation, although if the hyperlink has its “submit delta' attribute set, only input since the last form Submission is included. The system includes an effective return path in all hyperlink activations. A hyperlinked group 866 is a group element 838 which has

an associated hyperlink, as shown in FIG. 31. When input occurs through any field element in the group, the hyperlink 844 associated with the group is activated. A hyperlinked group can be used to associate hyperlink behavior with a field Such as a checkbox. It can also be used, in conjunction with the “submit delta' attribute of a form hyperlink, to provide continuous input to an application. It can therefore be used to support a “blackboard' interaction model, i.e. where input is captured and therefore shared as soon as it occurs. 1.7.2 Forms

A form defines a collection of related input fields used to capture a related set of inputs through a printed netpage. A form allows a user to Submit one or more parameters to an application Software program running on a server. A form 867 is a group element 838 in the document hier

archy. It ultimately contains a set of terminal field elements 839. A form instance 868 represents a printed instance of a form. It consists of a set of field instances 870 which corre spond to the field elements 845 of the form. Each field instance has an associated value 871, whose type depends on the type of the corresponding field element. Each field value records input through a particular printed form instance, i.e. through one or more printed netpages. The form class dia gram is shown in FIG. 32.

Each form instance has a status 872 which indicates whether the form is active, frozen, submitted, void or expired. A form is active when first printed. A form becomes frozen once it is signed or once its freeze time is reached. A form becomes Submitted once one of its Submission hyperlinks has been activated, unless the hyperlink has its “submit delta attribute set. A form becomes void when the user invokes a Void form, reset form or duplicate form page command. A form expires when its specified expiry time is reached, i.e. when the time the form has been active exceeds the forms specified lifetime. While the form is active, form input is allowed. Input through a form which is not active is instead captured in the background field 833 of the relevant page instance. When the form is active or frozen, form submission is allowed. Any attempt to submit a form when the form is not active or frozen is rejected, and instead elicits an form status report.

Each form instance is associated (at 59) with any form instances derived from it, thus providing a version history. This allows all but the latest version of a form in a particular time period to be excluded from a search.

All input is captured as digital ink. Digital ink 873 consists of a set of timestamped stroke groups 874, each of which consists of a set of styled strokes 875. Each stroke consists of a set of timestamped pen positions 876, each of which also includes pen orientation and nib force. The digital ink class diagram is shown in FIG. 33. A field element 845 can be a checkbox field 877, a text field

878, a drawing field 879, or a signature field 880. The field element class diagram is shown in FIG. 34. Any digital ink captured in a field's Zone 58 is assigned to the field. A checkbox field has an associated boolean value 881, as

shown in FIG. 35. Any mark (a tick, a cross, a stroke, a fill ZigZag, etc.) captured in a checkbox field's Zone causes a true value to be assigned to the field's value.

US 7,753,257 B2 29

A text field has an associated text value 882, as shown in FIG. 36. Any digital ink captured in a text field's Zone is automatically converted to text via online handwriting recog nition, and the text is assigned to the fields value. Online handwriting recognition is well-understood (see, for example, Tappert, C., C. Y. Suen and T. Wakahara, “The State of the Art in On-Line Handwriting Recognition', IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, Vol. 12, No. 8, August 1990, the contents of which are herein incorporated by cross-reference). A signature field has an associated digital signature value

883, as shown in FIG. 37. Any digital ink captured in a signature field's Zone is automatically verified with respect to the identity of the owner of the pen, and a digital signature of the content of the form of which the field is part is generated and assigned to the field's value. The digital signature is generated using the pen user's private signature key specific to the application which owns the form. Online signature verification is well-understood (see, for example, Plamon don, R. and G. Lorette, “Automatic Signature Verification and Writer Identification. The State of the Art', Pattern Recog nition, Vol. 22, No. 2, 1989, the contents of which are herein incorporated by cross-reference). A field element is hidden if its "hidden' attribute is set. A

hidden field element does not have an input Zone on a page and does not accept input. It can have an associated field value which is included in the form data when the form containing the field is submitted.

“Editing commands, Such as strike-throughs indicating deletion, can also be recognized in form fields.

Because the handwriting recognition algorithm works "online' (i.e. with access to the dynamics of the pen move ment), rather than "offline' (i.e. with access only to a bitmap of pen markings), it can recognize run-on discretely-written characters with relatively high accuracy, without a writer dependent training phase. A writer-dependent model of hand writing is automatically generated over time, however, and can be generated up-front if necessary,

Digital ink, as already Stated, consists of a sequence of strokes. Any stroke which starts in a particular element's Zone is appended to that element’s digital ink stream, ready for interpretation. Any stroke not appended to an object’s digital ink stream is appended to the background field's digital ink Stream.

Digital ink captured in the background field is interpreted as a selection gesture. Circumscription of one or more objects is generally interpreted as a selection of the circumscribed objects, although the actual interpretation is application-spe cific.

Table 2 Summarises these various pen interactions with a netpage.

TABLE 2

Summary of pen interactions with a netpage

Object Type Pen input Action

Hyper- General Click Submit action to application link Form Click Submit form to application

Selection Click Submit selection to application Form Checkbox Any mark Assign true to field field Text Handwriting Convert digital ink to text; assign

text to field Drawing Digital Assign digital ink to field

ink Signature Signature Verify digital ink signature;

generate digital signature of form; assign digital signature to field

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TABLE 2-continued

Summary of pen interactions with a netpage

Object Pen input Action Type

None Circumscrip- Assign digital ink to current tion Selection

The system maintains a current selection for each pen. The selection consists simply of the most recent stroke captured in the background field. The selection is cleared after an inac tivity timeout to ensure predictable behavior. The raw digital ink captured in every field is retained on the

netpage page server and is optionally transmitted with the form data when the form is submitted to the application. This allows the application to interrogate the raw digital ink should it suspect the original conversion, such as the conversion of handwritten text. This can, for example, involve human inter vention at the application level for forms which fail certain application-specific consistency checks. As an extension to this, the entire background area of a form can be designated as a drawing field. The application can then decide, on the basis of the presence of digital ink outside the explicit fields of the form, to route the form to a human operator, on the assump tion that the user may have indicated amendments to the filled-in fields outside of those fields.

FIG.38 shows a flowchart of the process of handling pen input relative to a netpage. The process consists of receiving (at 884) a stroke from the pen; identifying (at 885) the page instance 830 to which the page ID 50 in the stroke refers; retrieving (at 886) the page description 5; identifying (at 887) a formatted element 839 whose Zone 58 the stroke intersects; determining (at 888) whether the formatted element corre sponds to a field element, and if so appending (at 892) the received stroke to the digital ink of the field value 871, inter preting (at 893) the accumulated digital ink of the field, and determining (at 894) whether the field is part of a hyperlinked group 866 and if so activating (at 895) the associated hyper link; alternatively determining (at 889) whether the formatted element corresponds to a hyperlink element and if so activat ing (at 895) the corresponding hyperlink; alternatively, in the absence of an input field or hyperlink, appending (at 890) the received stroke to the digital ink of the background field 833; and copying (at 891) the received stroke to the current selec tion 826 of the current pen, as maintained by the registration SeVe.

FIG. 38a shows a detailed flowchart of step 893 in the process shown in FIG. 38, where the accumulated digital ink of a field is interpreted according to the type of the field. The process consists of determining (at 896) whether the field is a checkbox and (at 897) whether the digital ink represents a checkmark, and if so assigning (at 898) a true value to the field value; alternatively determining (at 899) whether the field is a text field and if so converting (at 900) the digital ink to computer text, with the help of the appropriate registration server, and assigning (at 901) the converted computer text to the field value; alternatively determining (at 902) whether the field is a signature field and if so verifying (at 903) the digital ink as the signature of the pen's owner, with the help of the appropriate registration server, creating (at 904) a digital sig nature of the contents of the corresponding form, also with the help of the registration server and using the pen owners private signature key relating to the corresponding applica tion, and assigning (at 905) the digital signature to the field value.

US 7,753,257 B2 31

1.7.3 Page Server Commands A page server command is a command which is handled

locally by the page server. It operates directly on form, page and document instances. A page server command 907 can be avoid form command

908, a duplicate form command 909, a reset form command 910, a get form status command 911, a duplicate page com mand 912, a reset page command 913, a get page status command 914, a duplicate document command 915, a reset document command 916, or a get document status command 917, as shown in FIG. 39. A Void form command Voids the corresponding form

instance. A duplicate form command Voids the corresponding form instance and then produces an active printed copy of the current form instance with field values preserved. The copy contains the same hyperlink transaction IDs as the original, and so is indistinguishable from the original to an application. A reset form command Voids the corresponding form instance and then produces an active printed copy of the form instance with field values discarded. A get form status com mand produces a printed report on the status of the corre sponding form instance, including who published it, when it was printed, for whom it was printed, and the form status of the form instance.

Since a form hyperlink instance contains a transaction ID, the application has to be involved in producing a new form instance. A button requesting a new form instance is therefore typically implemented as a hyperlink. A duplicate page command produces a printed copy of the

corresponding page instance with the background field value preserved. If the page contains a form or is part of a form, then the duplicate page command is interpreted as a duplicate form command. A reset page command produces a printed copy of the corresponding page instance with the background field value discarded. If the page contains a form or is part of a form, then the reset page command is interpreted as a reset form command. A get page status command produces a printed report on the status of the corresponding page instance, including who published it, when it was printed, for whom it was printed, and the status of any forms it contains or is part of The netpage logo which appears on every netpage is usu

ally associated with a duplicate page element. When a page instance is duplicated with field values pre

served, field values are printed in their native form, i.e. a checkmarkappears as a standard checkmark graphic, and text appears as typeset text. Only drawings and signatures appear in their original form, with a signature accompanied by a standard graphic indicating Successful signature verification. A duplicate document command produces a printed copy

of the corresponding document instance with background field values preserved. If the document contains any forms, then the duplicate document command duplicates the forms in the same way a duplicate form command does. A reset document command produces a printed copy of the corre sponding document instance with background field values discarded. If the document contains any forms, then the reset document command resets the forms in the same way a reset form command does. A get document status command pro duces a printed report on the status of the corresponding document instance, including who published it, when it was printed, for whom it was printed, and the status of any forms it contains.

If the page server command’s “on selected attribute is set, then the command operates on the page identified by the pen's current selection rather than on the page containing the com mand. This allows a menu of page server commands to be

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32 printed. If the target page doesn’t contain a page server com mand element for the designated page server command, then the command is ignored. An application can provide application-specific handling

by embedding the relevant page server command element in a hyperlinked group. The page server activates the hyperlink associated with the hyperlinked group rather than executing the page server command. A page server command element is hidden if its “hidden'

attribute is set. A hidden command element does not have an input Zone on a page and so cannot be activated directly by a user. It can, however, beactivated via a page server command embedded in a different page, if that page server command has its "on selected' attribute set.

1.8 Standard Features of Netpages In the preferred form, each netpage is printed with the

netpage logo at the bottom to indicate that it is a netpage and therefore has interactive properties. The logo also acts as a copy button. In most cases pressing the logo produces a copy of the page. In the case of a form, the button produces a copy of the entire form. And in the case of a secure document, such as a ticket or coupon, the button elicits an explanatory note or advertising page. The default single-page copy function is handled directly

by the relevant netpage page server. Special copy functions are handled by linking the logo button to an application. 1.9 User Help System

In a preferred embodiment, the netpage printer has a single button labelled “Help'. When pressed it elicits a single help page 46 of information, including:

status of printer connection status of printer consumables top-level help menu document function menu top-level netpage network directory The help menu provides a hierarchical manual on how to

use the netpage system. The document function menu includes the following func

tions: print a copy of a document print a clean copy of a form print the status of a document A document function is initiated by selecting the document

and then pressing the button. The status of a document indi cates who published it and when, to whom it was delivered, and to whom and when it was Subsequently Submitted as a form. The help page is obviously unavailable if the printer is

unable to print. In this case the "error light is lit and the user can request remote diagnosis over the network. 2 Personalized Publication Model

In the following description, news is used as a canonical publication example to illustrate personalization mechanisms in the netpage system. Although news is often used in the limited sense of newspaper and newsmagazine news, the intended scope in the present context is wider.

In the netpage system, the editorial content and the adver tising content of a news publication are personalized using different mechanisms. The editorial content is personalized according to the reader's explicitly stated and implicitly cap tured interest profile. The advertising content is personalized according to the reader's locality and demographic. 2.1 Editorial Personalization A subscriber can draw on two kinds of news sources: those

that deliver news publications, and those that deliver news

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streams. While news publications are aggregated and edited by the publisher, news streams are aggregated either by a news publisher or by a specialized news aggregator. News publications typically correspond to traditional newspapers and newsmagazines, while news streams can be many and varied: a “raw' news feed from a news service, a cartoon strip, a freelance writer's column, a friend’s bulletin board, or the reader's own e-mail. The netpage publication server Supports the publication of

edited news publications as well as the aggregation of mul tiple news streams. By handling the aggregation and hence the formatting of news streams selected directly by the reader, the server is able to place advertising on pages over which it otherwise has no editorial control. The subscriber builds a daily newspaper by selecting one or

more contributing news publications, and creating a person alized version of each. The resulting daily editions are printed and bound together into a single newspaper. The various members of a household typically express their different interests and tastes by selecting different daily publications and then customizing them.

For each publication, the reader optionally selects specific sections. Some sections appear daily, while others appear weekly. The daily sections available from The New York Times online, for example, include “Page One Plus', “National”, “International”, “Opinion”, “Business”, “Arts/ Living”, “Technology', and “Sports”. The set of available sections is specific to a publication, as is the default Subset. The reader can extend the daily newspaper by creating

custom sections, each one drawing on any number of news streams. Custom sections might be created for e-mail and friends announcements (“Personal’’), or for monitoring news feeds for specific topics (“Alerts' or “Clippings').

For each section, the reader optionally specifies its size, either qualitatively (e.g. short, medium, or long), or numeri cally (i.e. as a limit on its number of pages), and the desired proportion of advertising, either qualitatively (e.g. high, nor mal, low, none), or numerically (i.e. as a percentage). The reader also optionally expresses a preference for a

large number of shorter articles or a small number of longer articles. Each article is ideally written (or edited) in both short and long forms to Support this preference. An article may also be written (or edited) in different

versions to match the expected Sophistication of the reader, for example to provide children's and adults versions. The appropriate version is selected according to the readers age. The reader can specify a “reading age which takes prece dence over their biological age. The articles which make up each section are selected and

prioritized by the editors, and each is assigned a useful life time. By default they are delivered to all relevant subscribers, in priority order, Subject to space constraints in the Subscrib ers' editions.

In sections where it is appropriate, the reader may option ally enable collaborative filtering. This is then applied to articles which have a sufficiently long lifetime. Each article which qualifies for collaborative filtering is printed with rat ing buttons at the end of the article. The buttons can provide an easy choice (e.g. “liked and "disliked'), making it more likely that readers will bother to rate the article.

Articles with high priorities and short lifetimes are there fore effectively considered essential reading by the editors and are delivered to most relevant subscribers. The reader optionally specifies a serendipity factor, either

qualitatively (e.g. do or don't Surprise me), or numerically. A high serendipity factor lowers the threshold used for match ing during collaborative filtering. A high factor makes it more

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34 likely that the corresponding section will be filled to the reader's specified capacity. A different Serendipity factor can be specified for different days of the week. The reader also optionally specifies topics of particular

interest within a section, and this modifies the priorities assigned by the editors. The speed of the reader's Internet connection affects the

quality at which images can be delivered. The reader option ally specifies a preference for fewer images or Smaller images or both. If the number or size of images is not reduced, then images may be delivered at lower quality (i.e. at lower reso lution or with greater compression). At a global level, the reader specifies how quantities, dates,

times and monetary values are localized. This involves speci fying whether units are imperial or metric, a local timeZone and time format, and a local currency, and whether the local ization consist of in situ translation or annotation. These preferences are derived from the reader's locality by default. To reduce reading difficulties caused by poor eyesight, the

reader optionally specifies a global preference for a larger presentation. Both text and images are scaled accordingly, and less information is accommodated on each page. The language in which a news publication is published, and

its corresponding text encoding, is a property of the publica tion and not a preference expressed by the user. However, the netpage system can be configured to provide automatic trans lation services in various guises. 2.2 Advertising Localization and Targeting The personalization of the editorial content directly affects

the advertising content, because advertising is typically placed to exploit the editorial context. Travel ads, for example, are more likely to appear in a travel section than elsewhere. The value of the editorial content to an advertiser (and therefore to the publisher) lies in its ability to attract large numbers of readers with the right demographics.

Effective advertising is placed on the basis of locality and demographics. Locality determines proximity to particular services, retailers etc., and particular interests and concerns associated with the local community and environment. Demographics determine general interests and preoccupa tions as well as likely spending patterns. A news publisher's most profitable product is advertising

“space', a multi-dimensional entity determined by the publi cation’s geographic coverage, the size of its readership, its readership demographics, and the page area available for advertising.

In the netpage system, the netpage publication server com putes the approximate multi-dimensional size of a publica tions saleable advertising space on aper-section basis, taking into account the publication’s geographic coverage, the sec tions readership, the size of each reader's section edition, each reader's advertising proportion, and each readers demographic.

In comparison with other media, the netpage system allows the advertising space to be defined in greater detail, and allows smaller pieces of it to be sold separately. It therefore allows it to be sold at closer to its true value.

For example, the same advertising “slot can be sold in varying proportions to several advertisers, with individual readers pages randomly receiving the advertisement of one advertiser or another, overall preserving the proportion of space sold to each advertiser. The netpage system allows advertising to be linked directly

to detailed product information and online purchasing. It therefore raises the intrinsic value of the advertising space.

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Because personalization and localization are handled auto matically by netpage publication servers, an advertising aggregator can provide arbitrarily broad coverage of both geography and demographics. The Subsequent disaggrega tion is efficient because it is automatic. This makes it more cost-effective for publishers to deal with advertising aggre gators than to directly capture advertising. Even though the advertising aggregator is taking a proportion of advertising revenue, publishers may find the change profit-neutral because of the greater efficiency of aggregation. The adver tising aggregator acts as an intermediary between advertisers and publishers, and may place the same advertisement in multiple publications.

It is worth noting that ad placement in a netpage publica tion can be more complex than ad placement in the publica tion's traditional counterpart, because the publication’s advertising space is more complex. While ignoring the full complexities of negotiations between advertisers, advertising aggregators and publishers, the preferred form of the netpage system provides some automated Support for these negotia tions, including Support for automated auctions of advertising space. Automation is particularly desirable for the placement of advertisements which generate Small amounts of income, Such as Small or highly localized advertisements. Once placement has been negotiated, the aggregator cap

tures and edits the advertisement and records it on a netpage ad server. Correspondingly, the publisher records the ad placement on the relevant netpage publication server. When the netpage publication server lays out each user's personal ized publication, it picks the relevant advertisements from the netpage ad server. 2.3 User Profiles

2.3.1 Information Filtering The personalization of news and other publications relies

on an assortment of user-specific profile information, includ ing:

publication customizations collaborative filtering vectors contact details presentation preferences The customization of a publication is typically publication

specific, and so the customization information is maintained by the relevant netpage publication server. A collaborative filtering vector consists of the user's rat

ings of a number of news items. It is used to correlate different users interests for the purposes of making recommendations. Although there are benefits to maintaining a single collabo rative filtering vector independently of any particular publi cation, there are two reasons why it is more practical to maintain a separate vector for each publication: there is likely to be more overlap between the vectors of subscribers to the same publication than between those of subscribers to differ ent publications; and a publication is likely to want to present its users’ collaborative filtering vectors as part of the value of its brand, not to be found elsewhere. Collaborative filtering vectors are therefore also maintained by the relevant netpage publication server.

Contact details, including name, Street address, ZIP Code, state, country, telephone numbers, are global by nature, and are maintained by a netpage registration server.

Presentation preferences, including those for quantities, dates and times, are likewise global and maintained in the same way. The localization of advertising relies on the locality indi

cated in the user's contact details, while the targeting of advertising relies on personal information Such as date of

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36 birth, gender, marital status, income, profession, education, or qualitative derivatives Such as age range and income range.

For those users who choose to reveal personal information for advertising purposes, the information is maintained by the relevant netpage registration server. In the absence of Such information, advertising can be targeted on the basis of the demographic associated with the user's ZIP or ZIP+4 Code.

Each user, pen, printer, application provider and applica tion is assigned its own unique identifier, and the netpage registration server maintains the relationships between them, as shown in FIGS. 21, 22, 23 and 24. For registration pur poses, a publisher is a special kind of application provider, and a publication is a special kind of application.

Each user 800 may be authorized to use any number of printers 802, and each printer may allow any number of users to use it. Each user has a single default printer (at 66), to which periodical publications are delivered by default, whilst pages printed on demand are delivered to the printer through which the user is interacting. The server keeps track of which pub lishers a user has authorized to print to the user's default printer. A publisher does not record the ID of any particular printer, but instead resolves the ID when it is required. The user may also be designated as having administrative privi leges 69 on the printer, allowing the user to authorize other users to use the printer. This only has meaning if the printer requires administrative privileges 84 for Such operations. When a user subscribes 808 to a publication 807, the pub

lisher 806 (i.e. application provider 803) is authorized to print to a specified printer or the user's default printer. This autho rization can be revoked at any time by the user. Each user may have several pens 801, but a pen is specific to a single user. If a user is authorized to use a particular printer, then that printer recognizes any of the user's pens. The penID is used to locate the corresponding user profile

maintained by a particular netpage registration server, via the DNS in the usual way. A Web terminal 809 can be authorized to print on a par

ticular netpage printer, allowing Web pages and netpage documents encountered during Web browsing to be conve niently printed on the nearest netpage printer. The netpage system can collect, on behalf of a printer

provider, fees and commissions on income earned through publications printed on the provider's printers. Such income can include advertising fees, click-through fees, e-commerce commissions, and transaction fees. If the printer is owned by the user, then the user is the printer provider.

Each user also has a netpage account 820 which is used to accumulate micro-debits and credits (such as those described in the preceding paragraph); contact details 815, including name, address and telephone numbers; global preferences 816, including privacy, delivery and localization settings; any number of biometric records 817, containing the user's encoded signature 818, fingerprint 819 etc.; a handwriting model 819 automatically maintained by the system; and SET payment card accounts 821, with which e-commerce pay ments can be made.

In addition to the user-specific netpage account, each user also has a netpage account 936 specific to each printer the user is authorized to use. Each printer-specific account is used to accumulate micro-debits and credits related to the user's activities on that printer. The user is billed on a regular basis for any outstanding debit balances. A user optionally appears in the netpage user directory 823,

allowing other users to locate and direct e-mail (etc.) to the USC.

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2.4 Intelligent Page Layout The netpage publication server automatically lays out the

pages of each user's personalized publication on a section by-section basis. Since most advertisements are in the form of pre-formatted rectangles, they are placed on the page before the editorial content.

The advertising ratio for a section can be achieved with wildly varying advertising ratios on individual pages within the section, and the ad layout algorithm exploits this. The algorithm is configured to attempt to co-locate closely tied editorial and advertising content, such as placing ads for roofing material specifically within the publication because of a special feature on do-it-yourself roofing repairs. The editorial content selected for the user, including text

and associated images and graphics, is then laid out according to various aesthetic rules.

The entire process, including the selection of ads and the selection of editorial content, must be iterated once the layout has converged, to attempt to more closely achieve the user's stated section size preference. The section size preference can, however, be matched on average over time, allowing significant day-to-day variations. 2.5 Document Format

Once the document is laid out, it is encoded for efficient distribution and persistent storage on the netpage network. The primary efficiency mechanism is the separation of

information specific to a single user's edition and information shared between multiple users' editions. The specific infor mation consists of the page layout. The shared information consists of the objects to which the page layout refers, includ ing images, graphics, and pieces of text. A text object contains fully-formatted text represented in

the Extensible Markup Language (XML) using the Exten sible Stylesheet Language (XSL). XSL provides precise con trol over text formatting independently of the region into which the text is being set, which in this case is being pro vided by the layout. The text object contains embedded lan guage codes to enable automatic translation, and embedded hyphenation hints to aid with paragraph formatting. An image object encodes an image in the JPEG 2000

wavelet-based compressed image format. A graphic object encodes a 2D graphic in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format.

The layout itself consists of a series of placed image and graphic objects, linked textflow objects through which text objects flow, hyperlinks and input fields as described above, and watermark regions. These layout objects are summarized in Table 3. The layout uses a compact format suitable for efficient distribution and storage.

TABLE 3

netpage layout objects

Layout Format of object Attribute linked object

Image Position Image object ID JPEG 2000

Graphic Position Graphic object ID SVG

Textflow Textflow ID Zone Optional text object ID XML, XSL

Hyperlink Type Zone Application ID, etc.

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TABLE 3-continued

netpage layout objects

Layout Format of object Attribute linked object

Field Type Meaning Zone

Watermark Zone

2.6 Document Distribution As described above, for purposes of efficient distribution

and persistent storage on the netpage network, a user-specific page layout is separated from the shared objects to which it refers. When a subscribed publication is ready to be distributed,

the netpage publication server allocates, with the help of the netpage ID server 12, a unique ID for each page, page instance, document, and document instance. The server computes a set of optimized subsets of the

shared content and creates a multicast channel for each Sub set, and then tags each user-specific layout with the names of the multicast channels which will carry the shared content used by that layout. The server then pointcasts each user's layouts to that user's printer via the appropriate page server, and when the pointcasting is complete, multicasts the shared content on the specified channels. After receiving its point cast, each page server and printer Subscribes to the multicast channels specified in the page layouts. During the multicasts, each page server and printer extracts from the multicast streams those objects referred to by its page layouts. The page servers persistently archive the received page layouts and shared content. Once a printer has received all the objects to which its page

layouts refer, the printer re-creates the fully-populated layout and then rasterizes and prints it.

Under normal circumstances, the printerprints pages faster than they can be delivered. Assuming a quarter of each page is covered with images, the average page has a size of less than 400 KB. The printer can therefore hold in excess of 100 Such pages in its internal 64 MB memory, allowing for tem porary buffers etc. The printerprints at a rate of one page per second. This is equivalent to 400 KB or about 3 Mbit of page data per second, which is similar to the highest expected rate of page data delivery over a broadband network.

Even under abnormal circumstances, such as when the printer runs out of paper, it is likely that the user will be able to replenish the paper supply before the printer's 100-page internal storage capacity is exhausted.

However, if the printers internal memory does fill up, then the printer will be unable to make use of a multicast when it first occurs. The netpage publication server therefore allows printers to submit requests for re-multicasts. When a critical number of requests is received or a timeout occurs, the server re-multicasts the corresponding shared objects. Once a document is printed, a printer can produce an exact

duplicate at any time by retrieving its page layouts and con tents from the relevant page server. 2.7 On-Demand Documents When a netpage document is requested on demand, it can

be personalized and delivered in much the same way as a periodical. However, since there is no shared content, deliv ery is made directly to the requesting printer without the use of multicast.

US 7,753,257 B2 39

When a non-netpage document is requested on demand, it is not personalized, and it is delivered via a designated netpage formatting server which reformats it as a netpage document. A netpage formatting server is a special instance of a netpage publication server. The netpage formatting server has knowledge of various Internet document formats, includ ing Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF), and Hyper text Markup Language (HTML). In the case of HTML, it can make use of the higher resolution of the printed page to present Web pages in a multi-column format, with a table of contents. It can automatically include all Web pages directly linked to the requested page. The user can tune this behavior via a preference. The netpage formatting server makes standard netpage

behavior, including interactivity and persistence, available on any Internet document, no matter what its origin and format. It hides knowledge of different document formats from both the netpage printer and the netpage page server, and hides knowledge of the netpage system from Web servers. 3 Security 3.1 Cryptography

Cryptography is used to protect sensitive information, both in storage and in transit, and to authenticate parties to a transaction. There are two classes of cryptography in wide spread use: Secret-key cryptography and public-key cryptog raphy. The netpage network uses both classes of cryptogra phy.

Secret-key cryptography, also referred to as symmetric cryptography, uses the same key to encrypt and decrypt a message. Two parties wishing to exchange messages must first arrange to securely exchange the secret key.

Public-key cryptography, also referred to as asymmetric cryptography, uses two encryption keys. The two keys are mathematically related in Such a way that any message encrypted using one key can only be decrypted using the other key. One of these keys is then published, while the other is kept private. The public key is used to encrypt any message intended for the holder of the private key. Once encrypted using the public key, a message can only be decrypted using the private key. Thus two parties can securely exchange mes sages without first having to exchange a secret key. To ensure that the private key is secure, it is normal for the holder of the private key to generate the key pair.

Public-key cryptography can be used to create a digital signature. The holder of the private key can create a known hash of a message and then encrypt the hash using the private key. Anyone can then Verify that the encrypted hash consti tutes the “signature' of the holder of the private key with respect to that particular message by decrypting the encrypted hash using the public key and Verifying the hash against the message. If the signature is appended to the message, then the recipient of the message can verify both that the message is genuine and that it has not been altered in transit.

To make public-key cryptography work, there has to be a way to distribute public keys which prevents impersonation. This is normally done using certificates and certificate authorities. A certificate authority is a trusted third party which authenticates the connection between a public key and someone's identity. The certificate authority verifies the per son’s identity by examining identity documents, and then creates and signs a digital certificate containing the person’s identity details and public key. Anyone who trusts the certifi cate authority can use the public key in the certificate with a high degree of certainty that it is genuine. They just have to verify that the certificate has indeed been signed by the cer tificate authority, whose public key is well-known.

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40 In most transaction environments, public-key cryptogra

phy is only used to create digital signatures and to securely exchange secret session keys. Secret-key cryptography is used for all other purposes.

In the following discussion, when reference is made to the secure transmission of information between a netpage printer and a server, what actually happens is that the printer obtains the server's certificate, authenticates it with reference to the certificate authority, uses the public key-exchange key in the certificate to exchange a secret session key with the server, and then uses the secret session key to encrypt the message data. A session key, by definition, can have an arbitrarily short lifetime.

3.2 Netpage Printer Security Each netpage printer is assigned a pair of unique identifiers

at time of manufacture which are stored in read-only memory in the printer and in the netpage registration server database. The first ID 62 is public and uniquely identifies the printer on the netpage network. The second ID is secret and is used when the printer is first registered on the network. When the printer connects to the netpage network for the

first time after installation, it creates a signature public/private key pair. It transmits the secret ID and the public key securely to the netpage registration server. The server compares the secret ID against the printer's secret ID recorded in its data base, and accepts the registration if the IDs match. It then creates and signs a certificate containing the printer's public ID and public signature key, and stores the certificate in the registration database. The netpage registration server acts as a certificate author

ity for netpage printers, since it has access to secret informa tion allowing it to verify printer identity. When a user subscribes to a publication, a record is created

in the netpage registration server database authorizing the publisher to print the publication to the user's default printer or a specified printer. Every document sent to a printer via a page server is addressed to a particular user and is signed by the publisher using the publisher's private signature key. The page server verifies, via the registration database, that the publisher is authorized to deliver the publication to the speci fied user. The page server verifies the signature using the publisher's public key, obtained from the publisher's certifi cate stored in the registration database. The netpage registration server accepts requests to add

printing authorizations to the database, so long as those requests are initiated via a pen registered to the printer. 3.3 Netpage Pen Security

Each netpage pen is assigned a unique identifier at time of manufacture which is stored in read-only memory in the pen and in the netpage registration server database. The penID 61 uniquely identifies the pen on the netpage network. A netpage pen can "know a number of netpage printers,

and a printer can "know a number of pens. A pen commu nicates with a printer via a radio frequency signal whenever it is within range of the printer. Once a pen and printer are registered, they regularly exchange session keys. Whenever the pen transmits digital ink to the printer, the digital ink is always encrypted using the appropriate session key. Digital ink is never transmitted in the clear. A pen stores a session key for every printer it knows,

indexed by printer ID, and a printer Stores a session key for every pen it knows, indexed by pen ID. Both have a large but finite storage capacity for session keys, and will forget a session key on a least-recently-used basis if necessary. When a pen comes within range of a printer, the pen and

printer discover whether they know each other. If they don’t

US 7,753,257 B2 41

know each other, then the printer determines whether it is Supposed to know the pen. This might be, for example, because the pen belongs to a user who is registered to use the printer. If the printer is meant to know the pen but doesn't, then it initiates the automatic pen registration procedure. If 5 the printer isn't meant to know the pen, then it agrees with the pen to ignore it until the pen is placed in a charging cup, at which time it initiates the registration procedure.

In addition to its public ID, the pen contains a secret key exchange key. The key-exchange key is also recorded in the netpage registration server database at time of manufacture. During registration, the pen transmits its penID to the printer, and the printer transmits the penID to the netpage registration server. The server generates a session key for the printer and pen to use, and securely transmits the session key to the printer. It also transmits a copy of the session key encrypted with the pen's key-exchange key. The printer stores the ses sion key internally, indexed by the pen ID, and transmits the encrypted session key to the pen. The pen stores the session key internally, indexed by the printer ID.

Although a fake pen can impersonate a pen in the pen registration protocol, only a real pen can decrypt the session key transmitted by the printer. When a previously unregistered pen is first registered, it is

of limited use until it is linked to a user. A registered but “un-owned' pen is only allowed to be used to request and fill in netpage user and pen registration forms, to register a new user to which the new pen is automatically linked, or to add a new pen to an existing user. The pen uses secret-key rather than public-key encryption

because of hardware performance constraints in the pen. 3.4 Secure Documents The netpage system Supports the delivery of secure docu

ments such as tickets and coupons. The netpage printer includes a facility to print watermarks, but will only do so on request from publishers who are suitably authorized. The publisher indicates its authority to print watermarks in its certificate, which the printer is able to authenticate. The “watermark printing process uses an alternative

dither matrix in specified “watermark” regions of the page. Back-to-back pages contain mirror-image watermark regions which coincide when printed. The dither matrices used in odd and even pages watermark regions are designed to produce an interference effect when the regions are viewed together, achieved by looking through the printed sheet. The effect is similar to a watermark in that it is not visible

when looking at only one side of the page, and is lost when the page is copied by normal means.

Pages of secure documents cannot be copied using the built-in netpage copy mechanism described in Section 1.9 above. This extends to copying netpages on netpage-aware photocopiers.

Secure documents are typically generated as part of e-com merce transactions. They can therefore include the user's photograph which was captured when the user registered biometric information with the netpage registration server, as described in Section 2. When presented with a secure netpage document, the

recipient can verify its authenticity by requesting its status in the usual way. The unique ID of a secure document is only valid for the lifetime of the document, and secure document IDs are allocated non-contiguously to prevent their prediction by opportunistic forgers. A secure document verification pen can be developed with built-in feedback on verification fail ure, to Support easy point-of-presentation document verifica tion.

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42 Clearly neither the watermark nor the user's photograph

are secure in a cryptographic sense. They simply provide a significant obstacle to casual forgery. Online document veri fication, particularly using a verification pen, provides an added level of security where it is needed, but is still not entirely immune to forgeries. 3.5 Non-Repudiation

In the netpage system, forms Submitted by users are deliv ered reliably to forms handlers and are persistently archived on netpage page servers. It is therefore impossible for recipi ents to repudiate delivery. E-commerce payments made through the system, as

described in Section 4, are also impossible for the payee to repudiate. 4 Electronic Commerce Model

4.1 Secure Electronic Transaction (Set) The netpage system uses the Secure Electronic Transaction

(SET) system as one of its payment systems. SET, having been developed by MasterCard and Visa, is organized around payment cards, and this is reflected in the terminology. How ever, much of the system is independent of the type of accounts being used.

In SET, cardholders and merchants register with a certifi cate authority and are issued with certificates containing their public signature keys. The certificate authority verifies a card holder's registration details with the card issuer as appropri ate, and Verifies a merchant's registration details with the acquirer as appropriate. Cardholders and merchants store their respective private signature keys securely on their com puters. During the payment process, these certificates are used to mutually authenticate a merchant and cardholder, and to authenticate them both to the payment gateway. SET has not yet been adopted widely, partly because card

holder maintenance of keys and certificates is considered burdensome. Interim solutions which maintain cardholder keys and certificates on a server and give the cardholder access via a password have met with some Success. 4.2 Set Payments

In the netpage system the netpage registration serveracts as a proxy for the netpage user (i.e. the cardholder) in SET payment transactions. The netpage system uses biometrics to authenticate the

user and authorize SET payments. Because the system is pen-based, the biometric used is the user's on-line signature, consisting of time-varying pen position and pressure. A fin gerprint biometric can also be used by designing a fingerprint sensor into the pen, although at a higher cost. The type of biometric used only affects the capture of the biometric, not the authorization aspects of the system. The first step to being able to make SET payments is to

register the user's biometric with the netpage registration server. This is done in a controlled environment, for example a bank, where the biometric can be captured at the same time as the user's identity is verified. The biometric is captured and stored in the registration database, linked to the user's record. The user's photograph is also optionally captured and linked to the record. The SET cardholder registration process is completed, and the resulting private signature key and certifi cate are stored in the database. The user's payment card information is also stored, giving the netpage registration server enough information to act as the user's proxy in any SET payment transaction. When the user eventually supplies the biometric to com

plete a payment, for example by signing a netpage order form, the printer securely transmits the order information, the pen

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ID and the biometric data to the netpage registration server. The server verifies the biometric with respect to the user identified by the pen ID, and from then on acts as the user's proxy in completing the SET payment transaction. 4.3 Micro-Payments The netpage system includes a mechanism for micro-pay

ments, to allow the user to be conveniently charged for print ing low-cost documents on demand and for copying copy right documents, and possibly also to allow the user to be reimbursed for expenses incurred in printing advertising material. The latter depends on the level of subsidy already provided to the user. When the user registers for e-commerce, a network

account is established which aggregates micro-payments. The user receives a statement on a regular basis, and can settle any outstanding debit balance using the standard payment mechanism.

The network account can be extended to aggregate Sub scription fees for periodicals, which would also otherwise be presented to the user in the form of individual statements. 4.4 Transactions When a user requests a netpage in a particular application

context, the application is able to embed a user-specific trans action ID 55 in the page. Subsequent input through the page is tagged with the transaction ID, and the application is thereby able to establish an appropriate context for the user's input. When input occurs through a page which is not user-spe

cific, however, the application must use the user's unique identity to establish a context. A typical example involves adding items from a pre-printed catalog page to the user's virtual “shopping cart'. To protect the user's privacy, how ever, the unique userID 60 knownto the netpage system is not divulged to applications. This is to prevent different applica tion providers from easily correlating independently accumu lated behavioral data.

The netpage registration server instead maintains an anonymous relationship between a user and an application via a unique alias ID 65, as shown in FIG. 24. Whenever the user activates a hyperlink tagged with the “registered attribute, the netpage page server asks the netpage registration server to translate the associated application ID 64, together with the pen ID 61, into an alias ID 65. The alias ID is then submitted to the hyperlink's application. The application maintains state information indexed by

alias ID, and is able to retrieve user-specific state information without knowledge of the global identity of the user.

The system also maintains an independent certificate and private signature key for each of a user's applications, to allow it to sign application transactions on behalf of the user using only application-specific information.

To assist the system in routing product bar code (e.g. UPC) and similar product-item-related “hyperlink’ activations, the system records a favorite application on behalf of the user for any number of product types. For example, a user may nomi nate Amazon as their favorite bookseller, while a different user may nominate Barnes and Noble. When the first user requests book-related information, e.g. via a printed book review or via an actual book, they are provided with the information by Amazon.

Each application is associated with an application pro vider, and the system maintains an account on behalf of each application provider, to allow it to credit and debit the pro vider for click-through fees etc.

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44 An application provider can be a publisher of periodical

subscribed content. The system records the user's willingness to receive the subscribed publication, as well as the expected frequency of publication. 5 Communications Protocols

A communications protocol defines an ordered exchange of messages between entities. In the netpage system, entities Such as pens, printers and servers utilise a set of defined protocols to cooperatively handle user interaction with the netpage System.

Each protocol is illustrated by way of a sequence diagram in which the horizontal dimension is used to represent mes sage flow and the vertical dimension is used to represent time. Each entity is represented by a rectangle containing the name of the entity and a vertical column representing the lifeline of the entity. During the time an entity exists, the lifeline is shown as a dashed line. During the time an entity is active, the lifeline is shown as a double line. Because the protocols considered here do not create or destroy entities, lifelines are generally cut short as soon as an entity ceases to participate in a protocol.

5.1 Subscription Delivery Protocol A preferred embodiment of a subscription delivery proto

col is shown in FIG. 40.

A large number of users may subscribe to a periodical publication. Each user's edition may be laid out differently, but many users’ editions will share common content such as text objects and image objects. The Subscription delivery protocol therefore delivers document structures to individual printers via pointcast, but delivers shared content objects via multicast.

The application (i.e. publisher) first obtains a document ID 51 for each document from an ID server 12. It then sends each document structure, including its document ID and page descriptions, to the page server 10 responsible for the docu ment’s newly allocated ID. It includes its own application ID 64, the subscriber's alias ID 65, and the relevant set of mul ticast channel names. It signs the message using its private signature key. The page server uses the application ID and alias ID to

obtain from the registration server the corresponding userID 60, the user's selected printer ID 62 (which may be explicitly selected for the application, or may be the user's default printer), and the application’s certificate. The application's certificate allows the page server to

Verify the message signature. The page server's request to the registration server fails if the applicationID and alias ID don’t together identify a subscription 808. The page server then allocates document and page instance

IDS and forwards the page descriptions, including page IDS 50, to the printer. It includes the relevant set of multicast channel names for the printer to listen to.

It then returns the newly allocated pageIDS to the applica tion for future reference.

Once the application has distributed all of the document structures to the subscribers selected printers via the relevant page servers, it multicasts the various Subsets of the shared objects on the previously selected multicast channels. Both page servers and printers monitor the appropriate multicast channels and receive their required content objects. They are then able to populate the previously pointcast document structures. This allows the page servers to add complete docu ments to their databases, and it allows the printers to print the documents.

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5.2 Hyperlink Activation Protocol A preferred embodiment of a hyperlink activation protocol

is shown in FIG. 42. When a user clicks on a netpage with a netpage pen, the pen

communicates the click to the nearest netpage printer 601. The click identifies the page and a location on the page. The printer already knows the ID 61 of the pen from the pen connection protocol. The printer determines, via the DNS, the network address

of the page server 10a handling the particular page ID 50. The address may already be in its cache if the user has recently interacted with the same page. The printer then forwards the pen ID, its own printer ID 62, the page ID and click location to the page server.

The page server loads the page description 5 identified by the pageID and determines which input element's Zone 58, if any, the click lies in. Assuming the relevant input element is a hyperlink element 844, the page server then obtains the asso ciated application ID 64 and link ID 54, and determines, via the DNS, the network address of the application server host ing the application 71. The page server uses the pen ID 61 to obtain the corre

sponding userID 60 from the registration server 11, and then allocates a globally unique hyperlink request ID 52 and builds a hyperlink request 934. The hyperlink request class diagram is shown in FIG. 41. The hyperlink request records the IDs of the requesting user and printer, and identifies the clicked hyperlink instance 862. The page server then sends its own server ID 53, the hyperlink request ID, and the link ID to the application. The application produces a response document according

to application-specific logic, and obtains a document ID 51 from an ID server 12. It then sends the document to the page server 10b responsible for the document’s newly allocated ID, together with the requesting page server's ID and the hyperlink request ID.

The second page server sends the hyperlink request ID and application ID to the first page server to obtain the corre sponding user ID and printer ID 62. The first page server rejects the request if the hyperlink request has expired or is for a different application. The second page server allocates document instance and

page IDs 50, returns the newly allocated page IDs to the application, adds the complete document to its own database, and finally sends the page descriptions to the requesting printer. The hyperlink instance may include a meaningful transac

tion ID 55, in which case the first page server includes the transaction ID in the message sent to the application. This allows the application to establish a transaction-specific con text for the hyperlink activation.

If the hyperlink requires a user alias, i.e. its “alias required attribute is set, then the first page server sends both the penID 61 and the hyperlink's application ID 64 to the registration server 11 to obtain not just the userID corresponding to the pen ID but also the alias ID 65 corresponding to the applica tionID and the user ID. It includes the alias ID in the message sent to the application, allowing the application to establish a user-specific context for the hyperlink activation. 5.3 Handwriting Recognition Protocol When a user draws a stroke on a netpage with a netpage

pen, the pen communicates the stroke to the nearest netpage printer. The stroke identifies the page and a path on the page. The printer forwards the penID 61, its own printer ID 62,

the page ID 50 and stroke path to the page server 10 in the usual way.

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46 The page server loads the page description 5 identified by

the pageID and determines which input element’s Zone 58, if any, the stroke intersects. Assuming the relevant input ele ment is a text field 878, the page server appends the stroke to the text field's digital ink.

After a period of inactivity in the Zone of the text field, the page server sends the pen ID and the pending strokes to the registration server 11 for interpretation. The registration server identifies the user corresponding to the pen, and uses the user's accumulated handwriting model 822 to interpret the strokes as handwritten text. Once it has converted the strokes to text, the registration server returns the text to the requesting page server. The page server appends the text to the text value of the text field.

5.4 Signature Verification Protocol Assuming the input element whose Zone the stroke inter

sects is a signature field 880, the page server 10 appends the stroke to the signature field's digital ink.

After a period of inactivity in the Zone of the signature field, the page server sends the penID 61 and the pending strokes to the registration server 11 for verification. It also sends the application ID 64 associated with the form of which the signature field is part, as well as the form ID 56 and the current data content of the form. The registration server identifies the user corresponding to the pen, and uses the user's dynamic signature biometric 818 to verify the strokes as the user's signature. Once it has verified the signature, the registration server uses the application ID 64 and userID 60 to identify the user's application-specific private signature key. It then uses the key to generate a digital signature of the form data, and returns the digital signature to the requesting page server. The page server assigns the digital signature to the signature field and sets the associated form's status to frozen. The digital signature includes the alias ID 65 of the corre

sponding user. This allows a single form to capture multiple users signatures. 5.5 Form Submission Protocol A preferred embodiment of a form submission protocol is

shown in FIG. 43. Form Submission occurs via a form hyperlink activation. It

thus follows the protocol defined in Section 5.2, with some form-specific additions.

In the case of a form hyperlink, the hyperlink activation message sent by the page server 10 to the application 71 also contains the form ID 56 and the current data content of the form. If the form contains any signature fields, then the appli cation verifies each one by extracting the alias ID 65 associ ated with the corresponding digital signature and obtaining the corresponding certificate from the registration server 11. 6 Netpage Pen Description 6.1 Pen Mechanics

Referring to FIGS. 8 and 9, the pen, generally designated by reference numeral 101, includes a housing 102 in the form of a plastics moulding having walls 103 defining an interior space 104 for mounting the pen components. The pen top 105 is in operation rotatably mounted at one end 106 of the hous ing 102. A semi-transparent cover 107 is secured to the oppo site end 108 of the housing 102. The cover 107 is also of moulded plastics, and is formed from semi-transparent mate rial in order to enable the user to view the status of the LED mounted within the housing 102. The cover 107 includes a main part 109 which substantially surrounds the end 108 of the housing 102 and a projecting portion 110 which projects back from the main part 109 and fits within a corresponding slot 111 formed in the walls 103 of the housing 102. A radio

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antenna 112 is mounted behind the projecting portion 110. within the housing 102. Screw threads 113 surrounding an aperture 113A on the cover 107 are arranged to receive a metal end piece 114, including corresponding screw threads 115. The metal end piece 114 is removable to enable ink cartridge replacement.

Also mounted within the cover 107 is a tri-color status LED 116 on a flex PCB 117. The antenna 112 is also mounted on the flex PCB 117. The status LED 116 is mounted at the top of the pen 101 for good all-around visibility.

The pen can operate both as a normal marking ink pen and as a non-marking stylus. An ink pen cartridge 118 with nib 119 and a stylus 120 with stylus nib 121 are mounted side by side within the housing 102. Either the ink cartridge nib 119 or the stylus nib 121 can be broughtforward through open end 122 of the metal end piece 114, by rotation of the pen top 105. Respective slider blocks 123 and 124 are mounted to the ink cartridge 118 and stylus 120, respectively. A rotatable cam barrel 125 is secured to the pen top 105 in operation and arranged to rotate therewith. The cam barrel 125 includes a cam 126 in the form of a slot within the walls 181 of the cam barrel. Cam followers 127 and 128 projecting from slider blocks 123 and 124 fit within the cam slot 126. On rotation of the cambarrel 125, the slider blocks 123 or 124 move relative to each other to project either the pennib 119 or stylus nib 121 out through the hole 122 in the metal end piece 114. The pen 101 has three states of operation. By turning the top 105 through 90° steps, the three states are:

stylus 120 nib 121 out ink cartridge 118 nib 119 out, and neither ink cartridge 118 nib 119 out nor stylus 120 nib 121

Out

A second flex PCB 129, is mounted on an electronics chassis 130 which sits within the housing 102. The second flex PCB 129 mounts an infrared LED 131 for providing infrared radiation for projection onto the Surface. An image sensor 132 is provided mounted on the second flex PCB 129 for receiving reflected radiation from the surface. The second flex PCB 129 also mounts a radio frequency chip 133, which includes an RF transmitter and RF receiver, and a controller chip 134 for controlling operation of the pen 101. An optics block 135 (formed from moulded clear plastics) sits within the cover 107 and projects an infrared beam onto the surface and receives images onto the image sensor 132. Power Supply wires 136 connect the components on the second flex PCB 129 to battery contacts 137 which are mounted within the cam barrel 125. A terminal 138 connects to the battery contacts 137 and the cambarrel 125. A three volt rechargeable battery 139 sits within the cam barrel 125 in contact with the battery contacts. An induction charging coil 140 is mounted about the second flex PCB 129 to enable recharging of the battery 139 via induction. The second flex PCB 129 also mounts an infra red LED 143 and infrared photodiode 144 for detecting dis placement in the cambarrel 125 when either the stylus 120 or the ink cartridge 118 is used for writing, in order to enable a determination of the force being applied to the surface by the pen nib 119 or stylus nib 121. The IR photodiode 144 detects light from the IRLED143 via reflectors (not shown) mounted on the slider blocks 123 and 124.

Rubber grip pads 141 and 142 are provided towards the end 108 of the housing 102 to assist gripping the pen 101, and top 105 also includes a clip 142 for clipping the pen 101 to a pocket. 6.2 Pen Controller The pen 101 is arranged to determine the position of its nib

(stylus nib 121 or ink cartridge nib 119) by imaging, in the

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48 infrared spectrum, an area of the surface in the vicinity of the nib. It records the location data from the nearest location tag, and is arranged to calculate the distance of the nib 121 or 119 from the location tab utilising optics 135 and controller chip 134. The controller chip 134 calculates the orientation of the pen and the nib-to-tag distance from the perspective distor tion observed on the imaged tag.

Utilising the RF chip 133 and antenna 112 the pen 101 can transmit the digital ink data (which is encrypted for security and packaged for efficient transmission) to the computing system. When the pen is in range of a receiver, the digital ink data

is transmitted as it is formed. When the pen 101 moves out of range, digital ink data is buffered within the pen 101 (the pen 101 circuitry includes a buffer arranged to store digital ink data for approximately 12 minutes of the pen motion on the Surface) and can be transmitted later. The controller chip 134 is mounted on the second flex PCB

129 in the pen 101. FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating in more detail the architecture of the controller chip 134. FIG.10 also shows representations of the RF chip 133, the image sensor 132, the tri-color status LED 116, the IR illumination LED 131, the IR force sensor LED 143, and the force sensor photodiode 144. The pen controller chip 134 includes a controlling proces

sor 145. Bus 146 enables the exchange of data between com ponents of the controller chip 134. Flash memory 147 and a 512 KB DRAM 148 are also included. An analog-to-digital converter 149 is arranged to convert the analog signal from the force sensor photodiode 144 to a digital signal. An image sensor interface 152 interfaces with the image

sensor 132. A transceiver controller 153 and base band circuit 154 are also included to interface with the RF chip 133 which includes an RF circuit 155 and RF resonators and inductors 156 connected to the antenna 112.

The controlling processor 145 captures and decodes loca tion data from tags from the Surface via the image sensor 132, monitors the force sensor photodiode 144, controls the LEDs 116, 131 and 143, and handles short-range radio communi cation via the radio transceiver 153. It is a medium-perfor mance (~40 MHz) general-purpose RISC processor. The processor 145, digital transceiver components (trans

ceiver controller 153 and baseband circuit 154), image sensor interface 152, flash memory 147 and 512 KB DRAM 148 are integrated in a single controller ASIC. Analog RF compo nents (RF circuit 155 and RF resonators and inductors 156) are provided in the separate RF chip. The image sensor is a CCD or CMOS image sensor.

Depending on tagging scheme, it has a size ranging from about 100x100 pixels to 200x200 pixels. Many miniature CMOS image sensors are commercially available, including the National Semiconductor LM9630.

The controller ASIC 134 enters a quiescent state after a period of inactivity when the pen 101 is not in contact with a surface. It incorporates a dedicated circuit 150 which moni tors the force sensor photodiode 144 and wakes up the con troller 134 via the power manager 151 on a pen-down event. The radio transceiver communicates in the unlicensed 900

MHz band normally used by cordless telephones, or alterna tively in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz, industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band, and uses frequency hopping and colli sion detection to provide interference-free communication.

In an alternative embodiment, the pen incorporates an Infrared Data Association (IrDA) interface for short-range communication with a base station or netpage printer.

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In a further embodiment, the pen 101 includes a pair of orthogonal accelerometers mounted in the normal plane of the pen 101 axis. The accelerometers 190 are shown in FIGS. 9 and 10 in ghost outline. The provision of the accelerometers enables this embodi

ment of the pen 101 to sense motion without reference to Surface location tags, allowing the location tags to be sampled at a lower rate. Each location tag ID can then identify an object of interest rather than a position on the surface. For example, if the object is a user interface input element (e.g. a command button), then the tag ID of each location tag within the area of the input element can directly identify the input element. The acceleration measured by the accelerometers in each

of the X and y directions is integrated with respect to time to produce an instantaneous Velocity and position.

Since the starting position of the stroke is not known, only relative positions within a stroke are calculated. Although position integration accumulates errors in the sensed accel eration, accelerometers typically have high resolution, and the time duration of a stroke, over which errors accumulate, is short.

7 Netpage Printer Description 7.1 Printer Mechanics The vertically-mounted netpage wallprinter 601 is shown

fully assembled in FIG. 11. It prints netpages on Letter/A4 sized media using duplexed 8/2" MemjetTM print engines 602 and 603, as shown in FIGS. 12 and 12a. It uses a straight paper path with the paper 604 passing through the duplexed print engines 602 and 603 which print both sides of a sheet simul taneously, in full color and with full bleed. An integral binding assembly 605 applies a strip of glue

along one edge of each printed sheet, allowing it to adhere to the previous sheet when pressed against it. This creates a final bound document 618 which can range in thickness from one sheet to several hundred sheets. The replaceable ink cartridge 627, shown in FIG. 13

coupled with the duplexed print engines, has bladders or chambers for storing fixative, adhesive, and cyan, magenta, yellow, black and infrared inks. The cartridge also contains a micro air filter in a base molding. The micro air filter inter faces with an air pump 638 inside the printer via a hose 639. This provides filtered air to the printheads to prevent ingress of micro particles into the MemjetTM printheads 350 which might otherwise clog the printhead nozzles. By incorporating the air filter within the cartridge, the operational life of the filter is effectively linked to the life of the cartridge. The ink cartridge is a fully recyclable product with a capacity for printing and gluing 3000 pages (1500 sheets).

Referring to FIG. 12, the motorized media pick-up roller assembly 626 pushes the top sheet directly from the media tray past a paper sensor on the first print engine 602 into the duplexed MemjetTM printhead assembly. The two MemjetTM print engines 602 and 603 are mounted in an opposing in-line sequential configuration along the straight paper path. The paper 604 is drawn into the first print engine 602 by integral, powered pick-up rollers 626. The position and size of the paper 604 is sensed and full bleed printing commences. Fixa tive is printed simultaneously to aid drying in the shortest possible time. The paper exits the first MemjetTM print engine 602

through a set of powered exit spike wheels (aligned along the straight paper path), which act against a rubberized roller. These spike wheels contact the wet printed surface and continue to feed the sheet 604 into the second MemjetTM print engine 603.

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50 Referring to FIGS. 12 and 12a, the paper 604 passes from

the duplexed print engines 602 and 603 into the binder assem bly 605. The printed page passes between a powered spike wheel axle 670 with a fibrous support roller and another movable axle with spike wheels and a momentary action glue wheel. The movable axle/glue assembly 673 is mounted to a metal Support bracket and it is transported forward to inter face with the powered axle 670 via gears by action of a camshaft. A separate motor powers this camshaft. The glue wheel assembly 673 consists of a partially hollow

axle 679 with a rotating coupling for the glue supply hose 641 from the ink cartridge 627. This axle 679 connects to a glue wheel, which absorbs adhesive by capillary action through radial holes. A molded housing 682 surrounds the glue wheel, with an opening at the front. Pivoting side moldings and sprung outer doors are attached to the metal bracket and hinge out sideways when the rest of the assembly 673 is thrust forward. This action exposes the glue wheel through the front of the molded housing 682. Tension springs close the assem bly and effectively cap the glue wheel during periods of inactivity. As the sheet 604 passes into the glue wheel assembly 673,

adhesive is applied to one vertical edge on the front side (apart from the first sheet of a document) as it is transported down into the binding assembly 605. 7.2 Printer Controller Architecture The netpage printer controller consists of a controlling

processor 750, a factory-installed or field-installed network interface module 625, a radio transceiver (transceiver control ler 753, baseband circuit 754, RF circuit 755, and RF reso nators and inductors 756), dual raster image processor (RIP) DSPs 757, duplexed print engine controllers 760a and 760b, flash memory 658, and 64MB of DRAM 657, as illustrated in FIG 14.

The controlling processorhandles communication with the network 19 and with local wireless netpage pens 101, senses the help button 617, controls the user interface LEDs 613 616, and feeds and synchronizes the RIP DSPs 757 and print engine controllers 760. It consists of a medium-performance general-purpose microprocessor. The controlling processor 750 communicates with the print engine controllers 760 via a high-speed serial bus 659. The RIP DSPs rasterize and compress page descriptions to

the netpage printer's compressed page format. Each print engine controller expands, dithers and prints page images to its associated MemjetTM printhead 350 in real time (i.e. at over 30 pages per minute). The duplexed print engine controllers print both sides of a sheet simultaneously. The master print engine controller 760a controls the paper

transport and monitors ink usage in conjunction with the master QA chip 665 and the ink cartridge QA chip 761. The printer controller's flash memory 658 holds the soft

ware for both the processor 750 and the DSPs 757, as well as configuration data. This is copied to main memory 657 at boot time.

The processor 750, DSPs 757, and digital transceiver com ponents (transceiver controller 753 and baseband circuit 754) are integrated in a single controller ASIC 656. Analog RF components (RF circuit 755 and RF resonators and inductors 756) are provided in a separate RF chip 762. The network interface module 625 is separate, since netpage printers allow the network connection to be factory-selected or field-se lected. Flash memory 658 and the 2x256 Mbit (64 MB) DRAM 657 is also off-chip. The print engine controllers 760 are provided in separate ASICs.

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A variety of network interface modules 625 are provided, each providing a netpage network interface 751 and option ally a local computer or network interface 752. Netpage net work Internet interfaces include POTS modems, Hybrid Fiber-Coax (HFC) cable modems, ISDN modems, DSL modems, satellite transceivers, current and next-generation cellular telephone transceivers, and wireless local loop (WLL) transceivers. Local interfaces include IEEE 1284 (parallel port), 10Base-T and 100Base-T Ethernet, USB and USB 2.0, IEEE 1394 (Firewire), and various emerging home networking interfaces. If an Internet connection is available on the local network, then the local network interface can be used as the netpage network interface.

The radio transceiver 753 communicates in the unlicensed 900 MHz band normally used by cordless telephones, or alternatively in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band, and uses frequency hopping and collision detection to provide interference-free communica tion.

The printer controller optionally incorporates an Infrared Data Association (IrDA) interface for receiving data "squirted from devices such as netpage cameras. In an alter native embodiment, the printer uses the IrDA interface for short-range communication with Suitably configured netpage pens.

7.2.1 Rasterization and Printing Once the main processor 750 has received and verified the

document's page layouts and page objects, it runs the appro priate RIP software on the DSPs 757.

The DSPs 757 rasterize each page description and com press the rasterized page image. The main processor Stores each compressed page image in memory. The simplest way to load-balance multiple DSPs is to let each DSP rasterize a separate page. The DSPs can always be kept busy since an arbitrary number of rasterized pages can, in general, be stored in memory. This strategy only leads to potentially poor DSP utilization when rasterizing short documents.

Watermark regions in the page description are rasterized to a contone-resolution bi-level bitmap which is losslessly com pressed to negligible size and which forms part of the com pressed page image.

The infrared (IR) layer of the printed page contains coded netpage tags at a density of about six per inch. Each tag encodes the page ID, tag ID, and control bits, and the data content of each tag is generated during rasterization and stored in the compressed page image. The main processor 750 passes back-to-back page images

to the duplexed print engine controllers 760. Each print engine controller 760 stores the compressed page image in its local memory, and starts the page expansion and printing pipeline. Page expansion and printing is pipelined because it is impractical to store an entire 114 MB bi-level CMYK+IR page image in memory.

7.2.2 Print Engine Controller The page expansion and printing pipeline of the print

engine controller 760 consists of a high speed IEEE 1394 serial interface 659, a standard JPEG decoder 763, a standard Group 4 Fax decoder 764, a custom halftoner/compositor unit 765, a custom tag encoder 766, a line loader/formatter unit 767, and a custom interface 768 to the MemjetTM printhead 350.

The print engine controller 360 operates in a double buff ered manner. While one page is loaded into DRAM 769 via the high speed serial interface 659, the previously loaded page is read from DRAM 769 and passed through the print engine

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52 controller pipeline. Once the page has finished printing, the page just loaded is printed while another page is loaded. The first stage of the pipeline expands (at 763) the JPEG

compressed contone CMYK layer, expands (at 764) the Group 4 Fax-compressed bi-level black layer, and renders (at 766) the bi-level netpage tag layer according to the tag format defined in section 1.2, all in parallel. The second stage dithers (at 765) the contone CMYKlayer and composites (at 765) the bi-level black layer over the resulting bi-level CMYK layer. The resultant bi-level CMYK+IR dot data is buffered and formatted (at 767) for printing on the MemjetTM printhead 350 via a set of line buffers. Most of these line buffers are stored in the off-chip DRAM. The final stage prints the six channels of bi-level dot data (including fixative) to the Mem jetTM printhead 350 via the printhead interface 768. When several print engine controllers 760 are used in uni

son, such as in a duplexed configuration, they are synchro nized via a shared line sync signal 770. Only one print engine 760, selected via the external master/slave pin 771, generates the line sync signal 770 onto the shared line. The print engine controller 760 contains a low-speed pro

cessor 772 for synchronizing the page expansion and render ing pipeline, configuring the printhead 350 via a low-speed serial bus 773, and controlling the stepper motors 675, 676.

In the 8/2" versions of the netpage printer, the two print engines each prints 30 Letterpages perminute along the long dimension of the page (11"), giving a line rate of 8.8 kHz at 1600 dpi. In the 12" versions of the netpage printer, the two print engines each prints 45 Letter pages perminute along the short dimension of the page (8/2"), giving a line rate of 10.2 kHz. These line rates are well within the operating frequency of the MemjetTM printhead, which in the current design exceeds 30 kHz.

8 Product Tagging Automatic identification refers to the use of technologies

Such as bar codes, magnetic stripe cards, Smartcards, and RF transponders, to (semi-)automatically identify objects to data processing systems without manual keying.

For the purposes of automatic identification, a product item is commonly identified by a 12-digit Universal Product Code (UPC), encoded machine-readably in the form of a printed bar code. The most common UPC numbering system incor porates a 5-digit manufacturer ID and a 5-digit item number. Because of its limited precision, a UPC is used to identify a class of product rather than an individual product item. The Uniform Code Council and EAN International define and administer the UPC and related codes as subsets of the 14-digit Global Trade Item Number (GTIN).

Within Supply chain management, there is considerable interest in expanding or replacing the UPC scheme to allow individual product items to be uniquely identified and thereby tracked. Individual item tagging can reduce “shrinkage' due to lost, stolen or spoiled goods, improve the efficiency of demand-driven manufacturing and Supply, facilitate the pro filing of product usage, and improve the customer experience.

There are two main contenders for individual item tagging: optical tags in the form of so-called two-dimensional bar codes, and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. For a detailed description of RFID tags, refer to Klaus Finkenzeller, RFID Handbook, John Wiley & Son (1999), the contents of which are herein incorporated by cross-reference. Optical tags have the advantage of being inexpensive, but require optical line-of-sight for reading. RFID tags have the advan tage of supporting omnidirectional reading, but are compara tively expensive. The presence of metal or liquid can seri ously interfere with RFID tag performance, undermining the

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omnidirectional reading advantage. Passive (reader-pow ered) RFID tags are projected to be priced at 10 cents each in multi-million quantities by the end of 2003, and at 5 cents each soon thereafter, but this still falls short of the sub-one cent industry target for low-price items such as grocery. The read-only nature of most optical tags has also been cited as a disadvantage, since status changes cannot be written to a tag as an item progresses through the Supply chain. However, this disadvantage is mitigated by the fact that a read-only tag can refer to information maintained dynamically on a network. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Auto-ID

Center has developed a standard for a 96-bit Electronic Prod uct Code (EPC), coupled with an Internet-based Object Nam ing Service (ONS) and a Product Markup Language (PML). Once an EPC is scanned or otherwise obtained, it is used to lookup, possibly via the ONS, matching product information portably encoded in PML. The EPC consists of an 8-bit header, a 28-bit EPC manager, a 24-bit object class, and a 36-bit serial number. For a detailed description of the EPC, refer to Brock, D. L., The Electronic Product Code (EPC), MIT Auto-ID Center (January 2001), the contents of which are herein incorporated by cross-reference. The Auto-ID Cen ter has defined a mapping of the GTIN onto the EPC to demonstrate compatibility between the EPC and current prac tices Brock, D. L., Integrating the Electronic Product Code (EPC) and the Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), MIT Auto-ID Center (November 2001), the contents of which are herein incorporated by cross-reference.

Although EPCs can be encoded and carried in many forms, the Auto-ID Center strongly advocates the use of low-cost passive RFID tags to carry EPCs, and has defined a 64-bit version of the EPC to allow the cost of RFID tags to be minimized in the short term. For detailed description of low cost RFID tag characteristics, refer to Sarma, S., Towards the 5c Tag, MIT Auto-ID Center (November 2001), the contents of which are herein incorporated by cross-reference. For a description of a commercially-available low-cost passive RFID tag, refer to 915 MHz RFID Tag, Alien Technology (2002), the contents of which are herein incorporated by cross-reference. For detailed description of the 64-bit EPC, refer to Brock, D. L., The Compact Electronic Product Code, MITAuto-ID Center (November 2001), the contents of which are herein incorporated by cross-reference. EPCs are intended not just for unique item-level tagging

and tracking, but also for case-level and pallet-level tagging, and for tagging of other logistic units of shipping and trans portation such as containers and trucks. The distributed PML database records dynamic relationships between items and higher-level containers in the packaging, shipping and trans portation hierarchy.

8.1 Omnitagging in the Supply Chain Using an invisible (e.g. infrared) tagging scheme to

uniquely identify a product item has the significant advantage that it allows the entire Surface of a product to be tagged, or a significant portion thereof, without impinging on the graphic design of the product’s packaging or labelling. If the entire product surface is tagged, then the orientation of the product doesn’t affect its ability to be scanned, i.e. a significant part of the line-of-sight disadvantage of a visible bar code is elimi nated. Furthermore, since the tags are small and massively replicated, label damage no longer prevents scanning.

Omnitagging, then, consists of covering a large proportion of the surface of a product item with optically-readable invis ible tags. Each omnitag uniquely identifies the product item on which it appears. The omnitag may directly encode the product code (e.g. EPC) of the item, or may encode a Surro

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54 gate ID which in turn identifies the product code via a data base lookup. Each omnitag also optionally identifies its own position on the surface of the product item, to provide the downstream consumer benefits of netpage interactivity described earlier.

Omnitags are applied during product manufacture and/or packaging using digital printers. These may be add-on infra red printers which print the omnitags after the text and graph ics have been printed by other means, or integrated color and infrared printers which print the omnitags, text and graphics simultaneously. Digitally-printed text and graphics may include everything on the label or packaging, or may consist only of the variable portions, with other portions still printed by other means. 8.2 Omnitagging As shown in FIG. 18, a products unique itemID 215 may

be seen as a special kind of unique object ID 210. The Elec tronic Product Code (EPC) 220 is one emerging standard for an itemID. An itemID typically consists of a product ID 214 and a serial number 213. The productID identifies a class of product, while the serial number identifies a particular instance of that class, i.e. an individual product item. The productID in turn typically consists of a manufacturer ID 211 and a product class number 212. The best-known product ID is the EAN.UCC Universal Product Code (UPC) 221 and its variants. As shown in FIG. 19, an omnitag 202 encodes a pageID (or

region ID) 50 and a two-dimensional (2D) position 86. The region ID identifies the Surface region containing the tag, and the position identifies the tag's position within the two-di mensional region. Since the surface in question is the surface of a physical product item 201, it is useful to define a one-to one mapping between the region ID and the unique object ID 210, and more specifically the item ID 215, of the product item. Note, however, that the mapping can be many-to-one without compromising the utility of the omnitag. For example, each panel of a product items packaging could have a different region ID 50. Conversely, the omnitag may directly encode the item ID, in which case the region ID contains the item ID, suitably prefixed to decouple item ID allocation from general netpage region ID allocation. Note that the region ID uniquely distinguishes the corresponding Surface region from all other Surface regions identified within the global netpage system. The itemID 215 is preferably the EPC 220 proposed by the

Auto-ID Center, since this provides direct compatibility between omnitags and EPC-carrying RFID tags.

In FIG. 19 the position 86 is shown as optional. This is to indicate that much of the utility of the omnitag in the Supply chain derives from the region ID 50, and the position may be omitted if not desired for a particular product.

For interoperability with the netpage system, an omnitag 202 is a netpage tag 4, i.e. it has the logical structure, physical layout and semantics of a netpage tag. When a netpage sensing device such as the netpage pen 101

images and decodes an omnitag, it uses the position encoded in the tag, and the position and orientation of the tag in its field of view, to compute its own position relative to the tag and hence relative to the region containing the tag. As the sensing device is moved relative to an omnitagged Surface region, it is thereby able to track its own motion relative to the region and generate a set of timestamped position samples representative of its time-varying path. When the sensing device is a pen, then the path consists of a sequence of strokes, with each stroke starting when the pen makes contact with the Surface, and ending when the pen breaks contact with the Surface.

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When a stroke is forwarded to the page server 10 respon sible for the region ID, the server retrieves a description of the region keyed by region ID, and interprets the stroke in relation to the description. For example, if the description includes a hyperlink and the stroke intersects the Zone of the hyperlink, then the server may interpret the stroke as a designation of the hyperlink and activate the hyperlink. 8.2.1 Item Id Management As previously described, a structured itemID typically has

a three-level encoding, consisting of a manufacturer ID, a product class number, and a serial number. In the EPC the manufacturer ID corresponds to the manager ID. Manufac turer ids are assigned to particular manufacturers 235 by a governing body such the Uniform Code Council (UCC). Within the scope of each manufacturer ID the manufacturer 235 assigns product class numbers to particular product classes 236, and within the scope of each product class num ber the manufacturer assigns serial numbers to individual product items 237. Each assignor in the assignment hierarchy ensures that each component of the item ID is assigned uniquely, with the end result that an itemID uniquely identi fies a single product item. Each assigned itemID component is robustly recorded to ensure unique assignment, and Subse quently becomes a database key to details about the corre sponding manufacturer, product or item. At the product level this information may include the product’s description, dimensions, weight and price, while at the item level it may include the items expiry date and place of manufacture. As shown in FIG. 20, a collection of related product classes

may be recorded as a single product type 238, identified by a unique product type ID 217. This provides the basis for map ping a scanned or otherwise obtained product ID 214 (or the productID portion of a scanned or otherwise obtained itemID 215) to a product type 238. This in turn allows a favorite application 828 for that product type to be identified for a particular netpage user 800, as shown in FIG. 24. As a product item moves through the Supply chain, status

information is ideally maintained in a globally accessible database, keyed by the itemID. This information may include the items dynamic position in the packaging, shipping and transportation hierarchy, its location on a store shelf, and ultimately the date and time of its sale and the recipient of that sale. In a packaging, shipping and transportation hierarchy, higher level units such as cases, pallets, shipping containers and trucks all have their own item ids, and this provides the basis for recording the dynamic hierarchy in which the end product item participates. Note that the concept of an item also extends to a Sub-component of an assembly or a compo nent or element of a saleable product.

FIG. 20 shows the product description hierarchy corre sponding to the structure of the item id; the product items dynamic participation in a dynamic packaging, shipping and transportation hierarchy; and the product items dynamic ownership. As the figure shows, a container 231 (e.g. case, pallet, shipping container, or truck) is a special case of an uniquely identified object 230. The fact that the container is holding, or has held, a particular object for the duration of Some time interval is represented by the time-stamped object location, wherein the end time remains unspecified until the container ceases to hold the item. The object-container rela tionship is recursive, allowing it to represent an arbitrary dynamic hierarchy. Clearly this representation can be expanded to record the time-varying relative or absolute geo graphic location of an object. The fact that an entity 232 owns, or has owned, a particular

object for the duration of some time interval is represented by

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56 the time-stamped object ownership 233, wherein the end time remains unspecified until the entity ceases to own the item. The owning entity 232 may represent a netpage user 800, e.g. when a netpage user purchases a product item and the sale is recorded. As shown in FIG. 56, a physical product item 201 is

recorded as a product item 237 by a product server 251. A product item may be recorded in multiple product servers, managed by different participants in the Supply chain Such as manufacturers, distributors and retailers. However, benefits accrue from providing a unified view of a product item, even if the unified view is provided virtually. To foster interoperability between different supply chain

participants and between disparate systems which may want to query and update both static and dynamic item informa tion, such information interchanges are ideally performed using a standard representation. The MIT Auto-ID Centers Physical Markup Language (PML) is an example of a stan dard representation designed for this purpose. For a detailed description of PML, refer to Brock, D. L. et al., The Physical Markup Language, MIT Auto-ID Center (June 2001), the contents of which are herein incorporated by cross-reference. 8.2.2 Region Id Management An unstructured ID such as the region ID 50 may be

assigned on demand through a multi-level assignment hier archy with a single root node. Lower-level assignors obtain blocks of ids from higher-level assignors on demand. Unlike with structured ID assignment, these blocks correspond to arbitrary ranges (or even sets) of ids, rather than to ids with fixed prefixes. Again, each assignor in the assignment hierar chy ensures that blocks of ids and individual ids are assigned uniquely. The region ID Subsequently becomes a database key to information about the region. In the netpage system, this information includes a full description of the graphical and interactive elements which appear in the region. Graphi cal elements may include Such things as text flows, text and images. Interactive elements may include Such things as but tons, hyperlinks, checkboxes, drawing fields, text fields and signature fields. 8.3 Omnitag Printing An omnitag printer is a digital printer which prints

omnitags onto the label, packaging or actual Surface of a product before, during or after product manufacture and/or assembly. It is a special case of a netpage printer 601. It is capable of printing a continuous pattern of omnitags onto a Surface, typically using a near-infrared-absorptive ink. In high-speed environments, the printer includes hardware which accelerates tag rendering. This typically includes real time Reed-Solomon encoding of variable tag data such as tag position, and real-time template-based rendering of the actual tag pattern at the dot resolution of the printhead. The printer may be an add-on infrared printer which prints

the omnitags after text and graphics have been printed by other means, oran integrated color and infrared printer which prints the omnitags, text and graphics simultaneously. Digi tally-printed text and graphics may include everything on the label or packaging, or may consist only of the variable por tions, with other portions still printed by other means. Thus an omnitag printer with an infrared and black printing capability can displace an existing digital printer used for variable data printing, Such as a conventional thermal transfer or inkjet printer.

For the purposes of the following discussion, any reference to printing onto an item label is intended to include printing onto the item packaging in general, or directly onto the item surface. Furthermore, any reference to an item ID 215 is

US 7,753,257 B2 57

intended to include a region ID 50 (or collection of per-panel region ids), or a component thereof. The printer is typically controlled by a host computer,

which supplies the printer with fixed and/or variable text and graphics as well as item ids for inclusion in the omnitags. The host may provide real-time control over the printer, whereby it provides the printer with data in real time as printing pro ceeds. As an optimisation, the host may provide the printer with fixed data before printing begins, and only provide vari able data in real time. The printer may also be capable of generating per-item variable data based on parameters pro vided by the host. For example, the host may provide the printer with a base item ID prior to printing, and the printer may simply increment the base itemID to generate Successive item ids. Alternatively, memory in the ink cartridge or other storage medium inserted into the printer may provide a source of unique item ids, in which case the printer reports the assignment of items ids to the host computer for recording by the host.

Alternatively still, the printer may be capable of reading a pre-existing itemID from the label onto which the omnitags are being printed, assuming the unique ID has been applied in Some form to the label during a previous manufacturing step. For example, the itemID may already be present in the form of a visible 2D bar code, or encoded in an RFID tag. In the former case the printer can include an optical bar code scan ner. In the latter case it can include an RFID reader. The printer may also be capable of rendering the itemID in

other forms. For example, it may be capable of printing the itemID in the form of a 2D barcode, or of printing the product ID component of the item ID in the form of a ID bar code, or of writing the itemID to a writable or write-once RFID tag. 8.4 Omnitag Scanning

Item information typically flows to the product server in response to situated scan events, e.g. when an item is scanned into inventory on delivery; when the item is placed on a retail shelf, and when the item is scanned at point of sale. Both fixed and hand-held Scanners may be used to scan omnitagged product items, using both laser-based 2D scanning and 2D image-sensor-based scanning, using similar or the same tech niques as employed in the netpage pen. As shown in FIG. 57, both a fixed scanner 254 and a

hand-held Scanner 252 communicate scan data to the product server 251. The product server may in turn communicate product item event data to a peer product server (not shown), or to a product application server 250, which may implement sharing of data with related product servers. For example, stock movements within a retail store may be recorded locally on the retail store's product server, but the manufacturers product server may be notified once a product item is sold. 8.5 Omnitag-Based Netpage Interactions A product item whose labelling, packaging or actual Sur

face has been omnitagged provides the same level of interac tivity as any other netpage.

There is a strong case to be made for netpage-compatible product tagging. Netpage turns any printed Surface into a finely differentiated graphical user interface akin to a Web page, and there are many applications which map nicely onto the Surface of a product. These applications include obtaining product information of various kinds (nutritional informa tion; cooking instructions; recipes; related products; use-by dates; servicing instructions; recall notices); playing games; entering competitions; managing ownership (registration; query. Such as in the case of stolen goods; transfer); providing product feedback; messaging; and indirect device control. If on the other hand, the product tagging is undifferentiated,

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58 such as in the case of an undifferentiated 2D barcode or RFID-carried item ID, then the burden of information navi gation is transferred to the information delivery device, which may significantly increase the complexity of the user experi ence or the required sophistication of the delivery device user interface.

8.5.1 Product Registration An omnitagged product can contain a <register button

which, when activated with a netpage pen, registers the netpage user as the owner of the product. The user's contact information, which is already recorded on the netpage sys tem, can be automatically transmitted to the product manu facturer who can record it in their customer database. The registration process can automatically add the manufacturer to the user's e-mail contact list, thus allowing the manufac turer to send the user e-mail relevant to the product, such as related special offers, recall notices, etc. If the manufacturer abuses their e-mail privileges, the user can bar them in the usual way. 8.5.2 Product Information Via Product ID

Some of the benefits of omnitagging products can be gained by enhancing the netpage pen to decode UPC bar codes. Alternatively a UPC bar code scanner can netpage enabled. When the netpage system receives a scanned UPC, it forwards a request to a default or favorite application for that product type (as described earlier), and this in turn elicits product information from the application, Such as in the form of a printed netpage. The product page can also include the facility to enter the serial number of the product item and register the user's ownership of it via a <registers button. Product manufacturers can thus gain the benefits of netpage linking for their entire installed base of products without making alterations to the products themselves.

8.5.3 Context-Specific Product Help If the entire Surface of a product is omnitagged, then press

ing on any part of the Surface with a netpage pen can then elicit product-specific help. The help is either specific to the area pressed, or relates to the product as a whole. Thus the user of the product has instant access to helpful information about specific features of a product as well as the product as a whole. Each feature-specific help page can be linked to the entire product manual.

8.5.4 Product Ownership Tracking If the entire Surface of a product is omnitagged, then press

ing on any part of the Surface with a netpage pen can elicit a description of the product and its current ownership. After the product is purchased, pressing on any part of the Surface can automatically register the product in the name of the owner of the netpage pen. Anyone can determine the ownership of a product offered for sale simply by pressing on any part of its surface with a Netpage Pen. Ownership may only be regis tered by a new owner if the current owner has relinquished ownership by signing the “sell' portion of the product’s status page. This places the product in an “un-owned' state.

Product information and ownership is maintained either by the product manufacturer, as a service to its customers, or by a profit-oriented third party. The shipping computer system of a product manufacturer

can automatically transfer ownership of products from the manufacturer to the distributor or retailer, and so on down through the Supply chain. The retail computer system of the retailer can automatically mark each sold item as free, or transfer ownership directly to the holder of the payment card

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used to pay for the product. The customer can also use a netpage pen at the point of sale to register immediate owner ship of the product.

Traditional clearing-houses for stolen goods, such as pawn shops, can be required by law to check the ownership of all products presented to them. Since an omnitagged product has an invisible encoding on most or all of its surface, it is difficult for a thief to remove it or even tell if it has been successfully removed. Conversely, it is incumbent on a potential buyer of a product to ensure that a clean reading can be obtained from its surface so that its ownership can be indisputably estab lished. Where a product is leased or otherwise subject to complex

or multiple ownership, the product registration database can reflect this and thus alert a potential buyer.

CONCLUSION

Although the invention has been described with reference to a number of specific examples, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the invention can be embodied in many other forms. The invention claimed is: 1. A method of facilitating an interaction between a user

and an item, said item comprising a product contained in a package, said package having an interface Surface containing information relating to the item, the interface Surface having disposed thereon coded data indicative of an identity of the item and of coordinates of a plurality of locations of the interface Surface, the method including the steps of

receiving, in a computer system, indicating data from a sensing device regarding the identity of the item and at least one position of the sensing device relative to the interface Surface, the sensing device, when placed in an operative position relative to the interface Surface, sens ing at least some of the coded data in the vicinity of the sensing device and generating the indicating data using at least some of the sensed coded data; and

facilitating, in the computer system and with reference to the indicating data, the interaction between the user and the item.

2. The method of claim 1 in which the interaction is asso ciated with at least one Zone of the interface surface and in which the method includes identifying, in the computer sys tem and from the Zone relative to which the sensing device is located, the interaction.

3. The method of claim 2 which includes: receiving, in the computer system, data regarding move ment of the sensing device relative to the interface sur face, the sensing device sensing its movement relative to the interface Surface using at least Some of the coded data; and

identifying, in the computer system and from the move ment being at least partially within the at least one Zone, the interaction.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of: identifying, in the computer system, that the user has

entered a handwritten signature onto the interface Sur face by means of the sensing device.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising the step of: effecting, in the computer system, an operation associated

with the handwritten signature. 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of: identifying, in the computer system, that the user has

entered handwritten text data by means of the sensing

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60 device and effecting, in the computer system, an opera tion associated with the handwritten text data.

7. The method of claim 6 which includes converting, in the computer system, the handwritten text data to computer text.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of: receiving, in the computer system, user data from a sensing

device regarding an identity of the user, the sensing device being programmed with the user data and; and

facilitating, in the computer system and with reference to the user data and the indicating data, the interaction between the user and the item.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said package comprises a label having said interface Surface.

10. The method of claim 1 in which the interaction records a transaction relating to the item.

11. A system for facilitating an interaction between a user and an item, the system including:

(A) the item comprising a product contained in a package, said package having an interface Surface containing information relating to the item, the interface Surface having disposed thereon coded data indicative of an identity of the item and of coordinates of a plurality of locations of the interface Surface; and

(B) a computer system configured to facilitate the interac tion in response to receiving indicating data from a sens ing device, the indicating data being indicative of the identity of the item and of at least one position of the sensing device relative to the interface Surface, the sens ing device, when placed in an operative position relative to the interface Surface, sensing at least Some of the coded data in the vicinity of the sensing device and generating the indicating data using at least Some of the sensed coded data.

12. The system of claim 11 in which the interaction is associated with at least one Zone of the interface Surface.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer system is configured for identifying movement of the sensing device using the indicating data, said indicating data being indicative of a plurality of positions of the sensing device.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer system is configured for identifying that the user has entered a hand written signature onto the interface Surface by means of the sensing device.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the computer system is configured for effecting an operation associated with the handwritten signature.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer system is configured for:

receiving user data from the sensing device regarding an identity of the user, the sensing device being pro grammed with the user data; and

facilitating, with reference to the user data and the indicat ing data, the interaction between the user and the item.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein said package com prises a label having said interface Surface.

18. The system of claim 11, further comprising: (C) the sensing device. 19. The system of claim 18, wherein the sensing device

comprises a marking nib. 20. The system of claim 18, wherein the sensing device

contains an identifier which imparts a unique identity to the sensing device.

(12) United States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 7,753,257 B2

Documents

Transcript of (12) United States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 7,753,257 B2